Women's Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, 24) 3030731898, 9783030731892

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Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24

Isabelle Chouinard Zoe McConaughey Aline Medeiros Ramos Roxane Noël   Editors

Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences Volume 24 General Editor Shahid Rahman (Lille, UMR 8163) Managing Editor Juan Redmond (Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile) Area Editors Argumentation and Pragmatics Frans H. van Eemeren (Amsterdam) Zoe McConaughey (Lille, UMR 8163) Tony Street (Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge) John Woods (British Columbia/King’s College) Argumentation and Rhetoric Gabriel Galvez-Behar (Lille, UMR 8529) Leone Gazziero (Lille) André Laks, (Princeton/Panamericana) Ruth Webb (Lille, UMR 8163) Decision Theory, Mathematics, Economy Jacques Dubucs (IHPST-Paris 1) Karine Chemla (CNRS, SPHERE UMR7219, Université de Paris) Sven Ove Hansson (Stockholm) Cognitives Sciences. Computer Sciences Yann Coello (Lille) Eric Gregoire (CRIL-Lens) Henry Prakken (Utrecht) François Recanati (ENS, Paris) Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Gerhard Heinzmann (Nancy) Sonja Smets (ILLC, Amsterdam) Göran Sundholm (Leiden) Logic Michel Crubellier (Lille, UMR 8163) Dov Gabbay (King’s College) Tero Tulenheimo (Lille, UMR 8163) Political Science and Sociology Jean-Gabriel Contamin (Lille) Franck Fischer (Rutgers) Josh Ober (Stanford) Marc Pichard (Lille, MESHS-Nord Pas de Calais)

Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning (LAR) explores links between the Humanities and Social Sciences, with theories (including decision and action theory) drawn from the cognitive sciences, economics, sociology, law, logic, and the philosophy of science. Its main ambitions are to develop a theoretical framework that will encourage and enable interaction between disciplines, and to integrate the Humanities and Social Sciences around their main contributions to public life, using informed debate, lucid decision-making, and action based on reflection. • • • •

Argumentation models and studies Communication, language and techniques of argumentation Reception of arguments, persuasion and the impact of power Diachronic transformations of argumentative practices

LAR is developed in partnership with the Maison Européenne des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société (MESHS) at Nord - Pas de Calais and the UMR-STL: 8163 (CNRS). This book series is indexed in SCOPUS. Proposals should include : • • • •

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We aim to make a first decision within 1 month of submission. In case of a positive first decision, the work will be provisionally contracted—the final decision about publication will depend upon the result of an anonymous peer review of the complete manuscript. The complete work is usually peer-reviewed within 3 months of submission. LAR discourages the submission of manuscripts containing reprints of previously published material, and/or manuscripts that are less than 150 pages / 85,000 words. For inquiries and proposal submissions, authors may contact the editor-in-chief, Shahid Rahman at: [email protected], or the managing editor, Juan Redmond, at: [email protected] More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11547

Isabelle Chouinard • Zoe McConaughey   Aline Medeiros Ramos  •  Roxane Noël Editors

Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Editors Isabelle Chouinard Philosophy Department, Université de Montréal Montreal, Canada Centre Léon Robin, Sorbonne Université Paris, France Aline Medeiros Ramos Philosophy Department, Université du Québec à Montréal Montreal, Canada Department of Philosophy & Arts Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Trois-­Rivières, Canada

Zoe McConaughey Université de Lille, UMR 8163 Savoirs Textes Langage Lille, France Philosophy Department Université du Québec à Montréal Montreal, Canada Roxane Noël Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge Cambridge, United Kingdom

ISSN 2214-9120     ISSN 2214-9139 (electronic) Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning ISBN 978-3-030-73189-2    ISBN 978-3-030-73190-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

I was a graduate student by the time I had my first chance to take a class with a female professor. In college, I had double-majored in Classics and Philosophy, and while both departments were full of wonderful faculty members, all of them were men. At the time, I barely noticed this—I was more struck by how few of my fellow classmates were women. In upper-level seminars, I was often the only “girl” in the class, and everyone would turn in their seats to see my reaction when the authors we were reading made pronouncements about women. One particularly egregious passage in Hesiod’s Works and Days sparked a running joke: Hesiod warns young men that attractive women only talk to them for their storehouses—so for the rest of the semester, whenever I was chatting with one of the guys in the class, another one was likely to lean over and whisper loudly: “You know she’s just after your barn, right?” My classmates weren’t making fun of me—in fact, they made it clear in a number of ways that they liked and even respected me. If anything, they were trying to show their solidarity by laughing at how ridiculous they thought Hesiod’s claim was. But I was the only person in the class that particular joke applied to, and it always reminded me that I was the “Other” in that context. Rather than being the exception, that experience became really more of the rule. In my senior year, for instance, a famous logician came to give a talk. I had just been accepted into the graduate program at Cornell, and I was looking forward to talking with the (male) speaker, whose work I admired. The auditorium was packed with students from several neighboring schools; as I squeezed past knees to reach the seat a friend was saving for me, I heard two guys whispering and realized they were talking about me. “She is kind of cute,” one of them said. “Right!” the other one laughed—“A ‘philosopher babe’.” I spent the talk intensely aware of their scrutiny. Afterwards, they both came up to talk to me. “So,” one asked with a grin, “are you in a philosophy class?” When I straightened up and replied rather stiffly, “Actually, I’m going to grad school for it in the fall,” the only response I got was a surprised, “So, do you enjoy philosophy, then?” Yes, in fact I do enjoy philosophy! But I’m not sure I would still be in the field if it weren’t for the group of women I became friends with in grad school. Although only two of the twenty-some professors on the philosophy faculty were women (and v

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only one of those two was tenured), almost half of the students in the graduate program identified as women, and the difference that made to my experience was immense. It wasn’t so much that it was a big deal to me to have other women around—it was more that it finally felt like it wasn’t a big deal for ME to be around. A friend of mine calls this the Rule of Three. When there’s just one of you, she says, you become the representative for your entire demographic. When there are only two of you, one of you becomes the “good” representative for your demographic and the other gets labeled “bad” in comparison. When there are three or more of you, however, the dynamics shift and you start to get to be a real person. All of this is to say that the representation of women matters in the history of philosophy, and not—as the editors of this volume rightly note—because there is some sort of magical ‘essence of femininity’ that “yields a privileged access to some kind of special philosophical stance.” The central reason this volume exists is simply to help counteract the under-representation of women in existing scholarship in the history of ancient and medieval philosophy. Philosophy is an inherently communal enterprise, and the isolation of any person or group is counter-productive to that enterprise. The isolation of fully half the human species should seem particularly worth attempting to overcome. I can imagine potential readers expecting a book written, edited, and reviewed entirely by women to focus on the thoughts of ancient and medieval women, and/or to offer feminist critiques of the theories of men from those periods. In my opinion, the fact that this book doesn’t do this is one of its greatest strengths. The goal of this volume is to increase female representation in the history of ancient and medieval philosophy; it is not a set of essays on ancient and medieval women philosophers, or a work in the history of feminist philosophy. As the editors note in their preface, and as the authors brilliantly demonstrate throughout the collection of essays, “there is not one, but many women’s perspectives corresponding to the great diversity of women’s scholarship in ancient and medieval philosophy, which includes works on feminist topics, but is not limited to it.” In short, philosophy as a robustly communal enterprise functions best when people of all sorts write on topics drawn from the entire history of the discipline. It would be a shame to seek to include a fuller range of voices in philosophy and to then constrain those voices to particular topics, figures, or methods. The dialogic structure of the book furthers the aim of philosophy as the work of community: the series of essays are set up as a conversation, not as a series of points/counterpoints or arguments and counter-arguments. In this way, the volume demonstrates how philosophy can build up as well as tear down, generate as well as deconstruct. The women who put this book together represent a wide variety of philosophical views, approaches, and goals, and this set of essays itself complements a variety of other approaches to increasing the representation of women in the history of philosophy. In so doing, it constitutes a welcome addition to scholarship in the history

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of ancient and medieval philosophy. As Elizabeth Spelman says in Inessential Woman, “No one ought to expect the forms of our liberation to be any less various than the forms of our oppression” (1988, p. 32). This volume stands to be significant—not just for the strength of the work included here, but for the future work the breadth of vision represented in these essays will inspire.  Grand Rapids, MI, USA February 15, 2021

Christina Van Dyke

Editors’ Preface

This book is a collective work built on the efforts of 62 women, including authors, reviewers, and editors. It features ten original contributions to different fields of ancient and medieval philosophy, all of which have been peer-reviewed in a double-­ anonymous process. Each contribution is accompanied by one or two response-and-­ discussion papers by scholars, thus opening new perspectives and engaging in further reflections on the matters at hand. Such a model provides the reader with a broader philosophical discussion of the topics addressed by the articles. This volume expands upon an earlier project. In 2017, Philippa Dott, then PhD student at Université Laval (Canada) and Université de Strasbourg (France), was attending a conference on ancient philosophy in Montreal (Canada). She could not help but notice that, despite the presence of many women in the audience, she was the only woman among the 15 panellists. This led her to think about the many other instances in which women were underrepresented in the various events she attended that were devoted to the history of philosophy. Teaming up with fellow graduate students from various universities, Dott spearheaded an effort to organize a conference which would aim to showcase and celebrate the work of women researchers working in ancient and medieval philosophy. Thus was born the Symposium in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy—Feminine* Perspectives, which took place at Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada), from March 15 to 17, 2018. An offspring of the Symposium, this volume is rooted in the same motivation. Its editors are former members of the organizing committee of the conference, and the book contains certain contributions that were presented during the Symposium, as well as several additional contributions. The call for papers followed criteria similar to those of the Symposium, including that all contributions were to be made by women, whom we invited to write on the topic of their choice within the realm of ancient and medieval philosophy. For this volume, an additional criterion was that we wanted the peer reviewers to be exclusively women as well. By adopting such practices, this book aims to be feminist in its approach and its process, while not necessarily having feminist philosophy as its subject matter. This is what the title Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy aims to capture. Indeed, we have chosen to focus on the perspectives of women, not because ix

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we believe that being a woman yields a privileged access to some kind of special philosophical stance, but rather in order to remedy the problem of representation mentioned above. Hence, the plural: there is not one, but many women’s perspectives corresponding to the great diversity of women’s scholarship in ancient and medieval philosophy, which includes works on feminist topics, but is not limited to it. Far from being an isolated effort, this book is our contribution to an ever-growing number of initiatives which endeavour to showcase the work of women in philosophy. Overall, such enterprises can be subsumed under two approaches: one brings women philosophers from the past, who happened to be passed over or forgotten by the dominant academic view, to our attention; the other strives to promote the research of present-day women working in all areas of philosophy. Examples of the first kind of venture include Mary Ellen Waithe’s germinal opus A History of Women Philosophers, which was published between 1987 and 1995. More recently, in 2020, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting published The Philosopher Queens, a book about women philosophers, written by women working in philosophy. Also notable is the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University. Online, Project Vox honours the work of women philosophers of the early-modern period. Initiatives of the second type include the UNESCO International Network of Women Philosophers’ Women Philosophers’ Journal; the International Association of Women Philosophers; the Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP), which has many chapters across North America and Europe; and the Red de Mujeres Filósofas de América Latina. Some efforts are also being made more specifically in the field of the history of philosophy. For example, the Women in Ancient Philosophy group, based at the Humboldt University of Berlin, organizes workshops and conferences where women specializing in ancient philosophy can network and share their research. In joining the second kind of initiative – that is, promoting the work of present-­ day scholars, in this case with a focus on the history of ancient and medieval philosophy – it is now our great pleasure to introduce the writings of the contributing authors, who hail from many different countries and backgrounds. Although our collective book in no way purports to provide a comprehensive account of any one particular philosophical period, our authors’ contributions, covering topics from the sixth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE, nevertheless address certain pivotal moments and players in the history of philosophy. Each part has the same structure: it features, first, a paper which sets up the discussion, and then, one or two responses which discuss or expand on it. Part I begins with Maddalena Bonelli’s “Women Philosophers in Antiquity: Open Questions and Some Results,” which interrogates the conspicuous quasi-­ absence of women figures in the philosophical canon, with a special emphasis on ancient philosophy. Some of the questions left open by Bonelli are then picked up by Katharine R. O’Reilly in her response “Women Philosophers in Antiquity and the Reshaping of Philosophy,” which also examines the implications of altering our views on the canon for the philosophical discipline in general.

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In Part II, Mariana Gardella Hueso’s “Cleobulina of Rhodes and the Philosophical Power of Riddles” highlights the relevance of Cleobulina’s riddles for the history of ancient thought. Indeed, in composing her riddles, Cleobulina invites us to think differently about everyday objects, and to recognize the limits of human understanding. Anna Potamiti’s response, “The Riddles of Cleobulina” provides further contextual elements, allowing us to recognize how Cleobulina’s riddles represent a specific kind of riddle, the ainigma. Potamiti then explores the possibility that ainigmata may be associated with a female tradition of riddling. In Part III, in “What Happened to the Philosopher Queens? On the ‘Disappearance’ of Female Rulers in Plato’s Statesman,” Annie Larivée draws upon Michèle Le Doeuff’s concept of déshérence to shed new light on the role of women in Plato’s political writings. On this basis, she argues that the Republic and the Statesman present similar views on this matter, even though this similarity has traditionally been overlooked. A response by Emily Fletcher, titled “Women and Childrearing in the Republic,” builds upon the work done by Larivée. Fletcher uses the concept of déshérence to show how the recognition of the critical value of childrearing in Plato’s political project informs certain radical social policies in Republic V, where the importance of childrearing justifies its being transformed from women’s responsibility into a responsibility shared by men and women in the city as a whole, thus removing it from the private sphere and transferring it to the public one. Part IV begins with Julie Giovacchini’s “Sexual Freedom and Feminine Pleasure in Lucretius,” which investigates Lucretius’ denunciation of love as it appears in De Rerum Natura. Giovacchini draws the reader’s attention to two aspects of the text which are often overlooked, namely the eulogy of the vagrant Venus and the study of feminine sexual pleasure. In doing so, she paints a general portrait of an Epicurean sexual ethos based on diversity and reciprocity, and she shows how the Epicurean account of sexuality acquires coherence once it is read with feminine sexuality and pleasure in mind. In her response, “An Epicurean Community of Women,” Natania Meeker uses Giovacchini’s insights as a springboard to initiate a broader discussion about the place of women’s experiences within the Epicurean framework. Izabela Jurasz opens Part V with “Destiny, Nature and Freedom According to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias: An Unknown Aspect of the Controversy Against Determinism,” a work which explores the extensive similarities between Bardaisan’s and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatments of the notions of nature, determinism, and fate. Isabelle Koch’s response, “How to Limit Fatalism? A Comparison Between Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan,” complements this study with an examination of the ways in which the two authors fit in an anti-fatalist tradition, as well as the role they play in the emergence of the concept of free will in late antiquity. Then, with “Bardaisan of Edessa on Free Will, Fate, and Nature: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Origen, and Diodore of Tarsus,” Ilaria L.  E. Ramelli broadens the discussion by exploring connections between Bardaisan’s views and those of not only Alexander of Aphrodisias, but also Origen and Diodorus of Tarsus.

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In Part VI, Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy,1 through their paper “Plotinus and Porphyry on Women’s Legitimacy in Philosophy,” draw our attention to views expressed by Plotinus and Porphyry which could support women’s inclusion in their circles. To accomplish this, the authors also present a prosopography of the women mentioned by Porphyry himself in his texts. Jana Schulz pens a reply entitled “Soul, Gender and Hierarchy in Plotinus and Porphyry,” which focuses on Plotinus and Porphyry’s idea of a genderless soul and raises certain points of disagreement with Cambron-Goulet and Côté-Remy’s thesis. Their thesis is then supported by Alexandra Michalewski, who examines elements of Plotinus’ life and school as recorded by Porphyry in her “Women and Philosophy in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus.” Part VII moves on to the medieval period with Roxane Noël’s “Abelard’s homo intelligitur Puzzle: On the Relation Between Universal Understandings and a World of Singulars.” Noël proposes an interpretation of the concept of nature in Peter Abelard’s philosophy that aims to clarify how Abelard uses it in his solution to a particular problem having to do with universal concepts. Irene Binini’s response, “Some Further Remarks on Abelard’s Notion of Nature,” focuses on the role of the concept in the discussion of future contingents and conditionals in order to draw attention to certain problems to which Abelard’s account of natures is vulnerable. Next, in Part VIII, Elena Băltuță attends to the thirteenth-century philosopher Robert Kilwardby in her paper “Does Bodily Pain Have an Intentional Character? Robert Kilwardby’s Answer.” She shows how, for Kilwardby, bodily pain is not a mere physical sensation, but rather an intentional state which possesses representational content. Sonja Schierbaum’s response, “Scaring Away the Spectre of Equivocation,” focuses on Băltuță’s methodological framework, especially her use of the notion of dialogue. She proposes an amended version of Băltuță’s argument which does not fall prey to the difficulties she identifies in it, while preserving the conclusion that, according to Kilwardby, bodily pain is an intentional state. Part IX features Aline Medeiros Ramos’ “Is Ars an Intellectual Virtue? John Buridan on Craft,” in which she expounds on John Buridan’s conception of craft as an intellectual virtue, while also commenting on the reasons why the status of craft as a virtue has been somewhat overlooked. Jenny Pelletier’s response, “William Ockham on Craft: Knowing How to Build Houses on the Canadian Shield,” complements Medeiros Ramos’ piece by presenting the conception of craft put forward by William Ockham, a contemporary of John Buridan who is often considered as his philosophical forerunner. The final part of the volume, Part X, transports the reader to the fifteenth century. In “The Fruit of Knowledge: To Bite or Not to Bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s Sin and Its Scholastic Sources,” Marcela Borelli, Valeria A.  Buffon, and Natalia G. Jakubecki discuss Isotta Nogarola’s stance on original sin, and specifically her contention that Eve did not sin more than Adam. Through their review of Nogarola’s

1  François-Julien Côté-Remy is the only man figuring in the table of contents of this volume, since he has the role of co-author.

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sources, the authors show that most of her references to early Christian writings are, in fact, taken from scholastic sources, and that Nogarola’s ingenuity consists in subverting misogynistic scholastic arguments in order to build a case favourable to women. Marguerite Deslauriers’ response, “Why Eve Matters in the History of Feminist Arguments,” evaluates the significance of Nogarola’s depiction of Eve by comparing it with relevant pro-woman works of the same period. Montreal, Canada

Isabelle Chouinard

Lille, France

Zoe McConaughey

Montreal, Canada Cambridge, United Kingdom

Aline Medeiros Ramos Roxane Noël

Acknowledgements

This book represents the culmination of many years of work, and its publication would not have been possible without the support we have received. First, we would like to thank the Centre Léon Robin (UMR 8061, CNRS/Sorbonne Université), the Laboratoire Savoirs, Textes et Langage (UMR 8163, CNRS/Université de Lille), the École Doctorale Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société (Université de Lille), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (through Professor Mélissa Thériault, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières) for providing the funding which allowed for this volume to be completed in a timely manner and in keeping with the standards of proper scholarship. An essential element of any serious scholarly publication is a rigorous and anonymous peer-review process. Thus, we wish to thank the reviewers who kindly agreed to volunteer their time and expertise to evaluate submissions and to provide the authors with useful guidance on how to improve their contributions. The reviewers’ work served as the solid foundation upon which our work, as editors, has been built. As this book is an offspring of the Symposium in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy—Feminine* Perspectives (Montreal, March 2018), we also thank the other members of the organizing committee for this event: Jeanne Allard, Sarah Clairmont, Anna-Christine Corbeil, Léa Derome, Philippa Dott, Delphine Gingras, and Charlotte Lemieux. We wish to especially thank Jeanne Allard, as she was directly involved with the earlier stages of the editing process of this volume.

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Acknowledgements

We are also grateful to Jean-Baptiste Gourinat, director of the Centre Léon Robin, for his advice and guidance. Finally, we thank Peter Gillies (also on behalf of our authors) for his meticulous copyediting and proofreading efforts. Montreal, Canada

Isabelle Chouinard

Lille, France

Zoe McConaughey

Montreal, Canada Cambridge, United Kingdom

Aline Medeiros Ramos Roxane Noël

Contents

Part I Women Philosophers in Antiquity 1 Women Philosophers in Antiquity: Open Questions and Some Results ��������������������������������������������������������    3 Maddalena Bonelli 2 Women Philosophers in Antiquity and the Reshaping of Philosophy������������������������������������������������������������   17 Katharine R. O’Reilly Part II The Riddles of Cleobulina of Rhodes 3 Cleobulina of Rhodes and the Philosophical Power of Riddles��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   31 Mariana Gardella Hueso 4 The Riddles of Cleobulina: A Response to Mariana Gardella Hueso’s “Cleobulina of Rhodes and the Philosophical Power of Riddles”����������������������������������������������   47 Anna Potamiti Part III  Women in Plato’s Republic and Statesman 5 What Happened to the Philosopher Queens? On the “Disappearance” of Female Rulers in Plato’s Statesman ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   61 Annie Larivée 6 Women and Childrearing in the Republic����������������������������������������������   91 Emily Fletcher

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Contents

Part IV Lucretius on Women’s Sexuality 7 Sexual Freedom and Feminine Pleasure in Lucretius��������������������������  103 Julie Giovacchini 8 An Epicurean Community of Women: A Response to Julie Giovacchini������������������������������������������������������������  123 Natania Meeker Part V Bardaisan of Edessa and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate, Nature, and Freedom 9 Destiny, Nature and Freedom According to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias: An Unknown Aspect of the Controversy Against Determinism����������������������������������������������  133 Izabela Jurasz 10 How to Limit Fatalism? A Comparison Between Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan������������������������������  161 Isabelle Koch 11 Bardaisan of Edessa on Free Will, Fate, and Nature: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Origen, and Diodore of Tarsus������������������  169 Ilaria L. E. Ramelli Part VI Plotinus and Porphyry on Women 12 Plotinus and Porphyry on Women’s Legitimacy in Philosophy����������  179 Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy 13 Soul, Gender and Hierarchy in Plotinus and Porphyry: A Response to Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy’s “Plotinus and Porphyry on Women’s Legitimacy in Philosophy”����������������������������������������������������������������������  201 Jana Schultz 14 Women and Philosophy in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus������������������������  211 Alexandra Michalewski Part VII The Concept of Nature in Peter Abelard 15 Abelard’s Homo Intelligitur Puzzle: On the Relation Between Universal Understandings and a World of Singulars������������  221 Roxane Noël 16 Some Further Remarks on Abelard’s Notion of Nature����������������������  239 Irene Binini

Contents

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Part VIII Robert Kilwardby on Bodily Pain 17 Does Bodily Pain Have an Intentional Character? Robert Kilwardby’s Answer ������������������������������������������������������������������  255 Elena Băltuță 18 Scaring Away the Spectre of Equivocation: A Comment ��������������������  267 Sonja Schierbaum Part IX John Buridan and William Ockham on Craft 19 Is Ars an Intellectual Virtue? John Buridan on Craft��������������������������  275 Aline Medeiros Ramos 20 William Ockham on Craft: Knowing How to Build Houses on the Canadian Shield��������������������������������������������������������������  303 Jenny Pelletier Part X Eve’s Sin in Isotta Nogarola 21 The Fruit of Knowledge: To Bite or not to Bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s Sin and Its Scholastic Sources����������������������  321 Marcela Borelli, Valeria A. Buffon, and Natalia G. Jakubecki 22 Why Eve Matters in the History of Feminist Arguments��������������������  343 Marguerite Deslauriers Index of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Names (pre-1600) ����������������  351 Index of Modern and Contemporary Names (post-1600)����������������������������  355

Part I

Women Philosophers in Antiquity

Chapter 1

Women Philosophers in Antiquity: Open Questions and Some Results Maddalena Bonelli

Abstract Already in 1690 Gilles Ménage’s Historia Mulierum Philosopharum noticed sixty-five women philosophers and classified them according to the school or sect with which each was associated. Yet, until recently, standard histories of philosophy have excluded or undervalued the role of women in the discipline. Some revisionary accounts, such as Waithe’s (A History of Women Philosophers, 1987), have sought to rectify this situation but, in doing so, they have sometimes adopted excessively restrictive criteria for inclusion, such as the survival—direct or indirect—of writings attributable to women. With specific reference to the cultural and material conditions of the ancient world, we consider some alternative approaches to the formation of a canon of women engaged with philosophy, bearing in mind how these are also freighted with consequences for our general conception of what it is to be a philosopher. Keywords  Women philosophers · Ancient philosophy · Philosophical canon · Revalorisation · Historical inclusion

1.1  Introduction The article “Feminist History of Philosophy” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sets out from the observation that [f]eminist philosophers engaged in a project of re-reading and re-forming the philosophical canon have noticed two significant areas of concern. The first is the problem of historical exclusion. Feminist philosophers are faced with a tradition that believes that there are no women philosophers and, if there are any, they are unimportant. (Witt & Shapiro 2015)

M. Bonelli (*) Dipartimento di Lettere, Filosofia, Comunicazione, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_1

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This certainly holds for ancient women philosophers. Barring very rare exceptions, women philosophers do not appear at all in the standard histories of ancient philosophy, which would lead one to think that there were none.1 But this is simply not the case: there were many women in antiquity who practised philosophy and who wrote philosophical works. Even when they are mentioned, ancient women philosophers are devalued, by which I mean not just that they are underestimated but that they are not even taken seriously. Indeed, even the sources that give the names of, recount anecdotes about and mention writings by women philosophers are, as we shall see, very often more or less tainted by devalorising prejudices. This does not mean that there have not been efforts, albeit rare, to revalorise ancient women philosophers and even to reconstruct their history. Undoubtedly, the two most significant attempts were made, first, by Gilles Ménage in the seventeenth century, with his Historia Mulierum Philosopharum (1690), and then by Mary Ellen Waithe in the twentieth century, with her A History of Women Philosophers (1987), the first volume of which covers ancient women philosophers. It is therefore fitting to start with these two texts not least because they have become points of reference for subsequent discussion of ancient women philosophers, but also because they provide grounds for raising questions that are still fundamental for the re-inclusion and the revalorisation of ancient women philosophers. This paper is intended as a contribution to the ongoing discussion of the status of ancient women philosophers. The first part will be expository, mainly describing and evaluating the way in which Ménage and Waithe classify and treat ancient women thinkers. The second part aims to offer arguments to revalorise women philosophers, expanding our criteria in order to include women in the canon of ancient philosophy.

1.2  Two Histories of Women Philosophers in Antiquity In the circles of seventeenth-century Paris that were the forerunners of the Enlightenment and that are often associated with the names of the “précieuses,”2 we find the figure of the well-known man of letters Gilles Ménage (1613–1692),3 who was tutor to Madame de Sévigné and Madame de La Fayette as well as a habitué of

1  One exception is Peter Adamson’s History of philosophy without any gaps series, which dedicates a chapter to women philosophers in the classical world (2014, ch. 42), and part of a chapter to Hypatia of Alexandria (2015, ch. 47). 2  The word—roughly equivalent to “bluestocking”—was a pretext for derision at the time. For this context and the importance of women as sponsors of literary conversation in their salons, see Craveri (2001) and Fumaroli (2015, esp. pp.  171–265); likewise Zedler’s introduction to the English translation of Ménage (1984, pp. x–xvi) and Zamboni’s introduction to the Italian translation of (2005, pp. 7–16). 3  On Ménage, see Zedler (1984, pp. vii–ix).

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the salons of Madame de Rambouillet and Mademoiselle de Scudéry. In 1663, Ménage brought out a long commentary on Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Doctrines of the Eminent Philosophers, a work of the third century CE that is still indispensable for reconstructing ancient philosophy; however, what is more to our purpose, in 1690 he published in Latin his Historia Mulierum Philosopharum, itself modelled on and drawing heavily, but not exclusively, from Diogenes,4 and reconstructing a history of ancient women philosophers.5 Ménage dedicated this work to Madame Anne Lefèvre Dacier, a learned woman and reader of Greek who, with her husband, edited texts of the Iliad and of the Odyssey. In his dedication to Anne Dacier, Ménage claims to have picked out as many as sixty-five women philosophers, though he mentions others in the body of the text, and he classifies them according to the school to which each belonged, leaving out about twenty women— among whom Diotima of Mantinea (fifth century BCE), Aspasia of Miletus (fifth century BCE), Saint Catherine of Alexandria (third–fourth century CE) and Héloïse (twelfth century), are classified as being, in Ménage’s view, of uncertain affiliation. As regards the women who belonged to philosophical schools, Ménage attributes seven women to the Platonic Academy (including therein Lasthenia, Axiothea, and the renowned Hypatia, to whom Ménage fully dedicates six pages, while the others receive just a few lines); one to the Academy in the Imperial Age; four to the school of Diodorus Cronus (his daughters); one each to the Cyrenaic school (Arete) and that of Megara; one to the Cynics (the notorious Hipparchia, wife of Crates); two to the Lyceum (the daughter of Olympiodorus of Alexandria, and Theodora, to whom Damascius (458–538) dedicated his Life of Isidore)6; three to the Epicurean Garden (Themista or Themisto, Leontion, and Theophila); and five to the Stoa (Porcia, Arria, Arria’s daughter also called Arria, Fannia, and Theophila). Yet by far the single most numerous and best-documented group is that of the Pythagorean women, of whom Ménage mentions twenty-six, drawing not only on Diogenes Laertius, but also on the Life of Pythagoras by Porphyry of Tyre (third century CE) and especially on Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Life (third–fourth century CE), the latter of which furnishes in its very closing lines the names of the seventeen “most famous” Pythagorean women (VP XXXVI 267), leaving us free to think that there were others less famous. Moreover, the only other philosophical writings that have come down to us, albeit fragmentary and with all the attendant problems, are attributable to Pythagorean women.7

4  Zedler says that the Historia “was intended as a supplement to the work of Diogenes Laertius” (1984, p. ix). 5  As Snyder has justly remarked (1989, p. 171 n. 1), Ménage’s book was substantially ignored when Zedler’s 1984 English translation appeared. More recently, there have been translations into Italian (2005), French (2006), Spanish (2009) and German (2019). 6  In point of fact, and as even Ménage himself is aware, it is not easy to understand why he places these women in Aristotle’s school. 7  It may be noted however that, since Ménage, other women philosophers have been discovered, such as Plotina, the Epicurean wife of the Emperor Trajan (first–second century CE).

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Ménage’s pamphlet is brief and anecdotal; its lightweight approach affords hardly any space for philosophy or for questions regarding the reliability or contents of the philosophical views attributed to the women under consideration. For instance, he gives throwaway lines like the following: “Hippo. Daughter of the centaur Chiron, she taught Æolus to contemplate nature”; or “Diotima. Taught Socrates to love philosophy. Socrates himself says as much in Plato’s Symposium”; or “Clea. Plutarch dedicated his book On the Virtue of Women to her. […] When she lost her mother […], he had a conversation with her to console her that was wholly philosophical, from which we guess (suspicamur) that Clea dedicated herself to the study of philosophy.” Overall, Ménage is more a man of letters than a philosopher: he quotes dozens of sources, both ancient and among the Church Fathers, that mention the ancient women philosophers,8 giving pride of place to stories, anecdotes and, above all, love and family relations.9 It is a very different story with the reconstruction of the female philosophers that we find in Waithe’s History of Women Philosophers, of which the entire first volume is dedicated to the period from 600  BCE to 500  CE.  While acknowledging that Ménage’s little book has been the inspiration for her construction of a history of women philosophers (p. xi), the line that Waithe takes, unlike that of the French scholar, is to consider in her History only those women philosophers who are authors (or supposed as such) of writings that have come down to us or to whom philosophical theories have been attributed. Thus, the first four chapters are dedicated to an analysis of the writings of Pythagorean women; likewise with Hypatia— who, however, raises thorny questions, given that two mathematical rather than philosophical commentaries are considered (and even they are of doubtful attribution).10 Again, attention is given to the theories attributed to women such as Aspasia of Miletus, Diotima, Julia Domna, Macrina, Arete of Cyrene, Asclepigenia,11 Axiothea, Cleobulina, Hipparchia and Lasthenia. To be sure, Waithe’s book has raised some important questions, some of which we consider here, such as the philosophical value of the writings attributed to Pythagorean women, or the attribution to Diotima of a version of the theory of Ideas. All the same, the volume seems to possess at least three merits: (1) to have emphasised and valorised the very scarce information that we have about the philosophical theories of women in antiquity, carefully reconsidering testimonies of ancient sources; (2) to have analysed the few texts attributable to women with the

8  Zedler (1984, p. xv) notes that Ménage cites more than 130 authorities for ancient women philosophers. 9  But see Zedler (1984, p. xvii): “because of the paucity of information about the philosophical opinions of the women philosophers, Ménage ends up with a work that has very little philosophical context.” Given the anecdotal style of Ménage’s writing, I am not very convinced by this explanation. 10  In this connection, see Waithe (1987, pp. 177–191); also Beretta (2014, pp. 63–75). But we know that Hypatia was a woman mathematician in a platonic sense, and therefore in a philosophical one (on the relationship between mathematics and dialectic, see Plato, Republic VII). 11  A name that does not appear in the list given by Ménage.

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greatest possible philological rigour, thanks in part to the help of classicist Vicki Lynn Harper; and (3) to undermine the prejudices that go hand in glove with the male accounts of women philosophers. Indeed, one must not forget that all the sources that speak of women philosophers in antiquity are themselves sources written and handed down by men.

1.3  Who Were the Women Philosophers? Even today, the first question that the works of Ménage and Waithe raise for us is: why are the women we are referring to called “philosophers?” What are the criteria that lead the ancient sources to speak of “women philosophers?” After all, when we refer to women philosophers in antiquity, we are also talking about mathematicians (such as Hypatia), priestesses (such as Diotima), empresses (such as Julia Domna or Plotina) or courtesans (such as Aspasia, Pericles’ partner). Ménage is by no means explicit on the point.12 Caterina Pellò (2020) has recently elucidated three categories of women philosophers that Ménage recognises: those, such as Hypatia, who wrote philosophical texts; those, such as Diotima of Mantinea who, directly or indirectly, enriched the philosophical life of their day; and those, such as Hipparchia or the early Pythagoreans, who were not only followers but also mothers, wives or daughters of philosophers. Undoubtedly, these three typologies are present in Ménage, but in view of the flimsy and colloquial nature of his text, it would be hard to say that they amount to criteria in any full-blown sense.13 Ménage is not explicit, but we can see that his Historia is organised by affiliation to philosophical schools, which would lead us to think that discipleship is at least an implicit criterion, given that the ancient sources count a woman as a “philosopher” if she is a follower of some philosopher, either as pupil or as a reader of his doctrines. In this loose sense, someone counts as a philosopher if she takes up questions addressed by such thinkers as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Chrysippus, Epicurus and so on. Things are more varied when Ménage presents women philosophers of uncertain school (Mulieres Philosophae incerta secta) and no single criterion can be given, though there are perhaps four groupings we may distinguish. In many cases in which no school can be individuated, Ménage speaks of “woman philosopher” or “wise woman” and says generically that she dedicated herself to philosophy.

 Zedler (1984, p. xvii) remarks: “[S]ince Ménage does not define philosophy or philosopher […], his criteria have to be discerned inductively from the choices he has actually made […]. Ménage, in deciding which women to list as philosophers, must have had the following questions in mind: 1) Is this woman called a philosopher or a wise or learned person by some ancient writer? 2) Is this woman a relative or friend or disciple of some recognized philosopher?” 13  Especially the third criterion, which, in my opinion, is simply an observation of the fact that women, except in rare cases, exercised philosophy because their fathers, husbands, brothers, etc., allowed it. See infra, Sect. 1.5. 12

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Instances of this type would include Cleobulina,14 of whom Ménage says that “in [Plutarch’s] The Symposium of the Seven Sages, Thales called her the ‘wise one (tên sophên)’ which Plutarch’s indexer takes to mean ‘dedicated to philosophy’”; or Pamphila: “the Suda calls her the wise woman of Epidauris (epidaurian sophên)”15; it is interesting that Ménage continues, observing that “Photius claims that her books are full of philosophical concepts,” which would mean that Pamphila’s books were still in circulation in the time of Photius (ninth century). A second group would include Hippo and Diotima, to whom we have already referred as women who taught philosophical doctrines to famous males, and likewise Aspasia, “who taught rhetoric and philosophy to Socrates.” Third, we may pick out those who make the cut because they studied philosophy. In this group fall Eurydice and Sosipatra (of the latter Ménage reports that “we learn from Eunapius that […] she taught philosophy to her sons”), as well as other women by the names of Eudocia, Saint Catherine, and Héloïse, who was instructed by her future husband. And a fourth group would comprise those who dedicated themselves to philosophical topics. This, in turn, is to be taken in the widest sense, as we can see from the case of Anthusa who, according to Damascius, engaged in cloud divination. Ménage claims that “since contemplation of the clouds is part of physics and physics of philosophy, and, as Aristotle says in Book XII […] of the Metaphysics, astrology is a sort of theoretical philosophy, it is correct to add Anthusa among the women philosophers (Anthusam illam mulieribus Philosophis addere placuit)”; likewise Aganice, given her knowledge of the phases of the moon. Again, Novella counts as a philosopher for her legal knowledge, given that Ulpian declared jurists to be philosophers. We have already heard about Clea and her philosophical conversation with Plutarch, which also extends to the philosophical speech delivered, according to Gregora, by Panypersebasta. Overall, it seems safe to say that Ménage uses the word “philosopher” in the classical sense to mean a “lover of wisdom” in order to cover the traditionally philosophical topics including meteorology as part of physics or the questions that famous philosophers have posed. Again, the idea has been floated that many women philosophers should be included on the grounds of their way of life.16 For her part, Waithe adopts a simpler and, at first sight, wholly convincing criterion: the exclusive consideration of women who have thought or written about philosophy. For all its charms, we will see that Waithe’s criterion, however, raises another question, that of the kind of philosophy that women practiced in antiquity.

 On Cleobulina, see Gardella Hueso’s contribution to this volume, as well as the response and discussion contribution made by Potamiti. [Eds.] 15  Similar remarks apply to Beronice, Julia Domna, Myro, Eudocia, Saint Catherine, and Anna Comnena. 16  Cf. Ménage (1690, s.v. Eudocia): “well-versed in philosophy, both practical and speculative (in Philosophia effectrice simul et contemplatrice).” Perhaps we should also count the case of the Pythagoreans, whom some scholars consider philosophers because they shared the Pythagorean lifestyle, apparently of strong impact in the Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, as ancient comedies written about women who “pythagorise” show (cf. Adamson 2014, p. 300). 14

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1.4  What Sort of Philosophy? What does it mean to say that women loved, exercised or contributed to philosophy? On the basis of the evidence presented in Waithe’s History, it seems that the prevailing view among the women and relatively few men who have taken up the question has been that the women who were involved in philosophy were committed to the same enterprise to which men were committed (Waithe 1987, p. xii).17 In light of this entirely reasonable view, and hence of the criterion that only women who thought about or wrote about philosophy count as philosophers, Waithe reduces Ménage’s list from over sixty-five to twenty-one.18 But what sort of philosophy did these twenty-one women philosophers practise? To clarify the point, it is worth giving a brief account of the reasons Waithe adduces for her selection. For the Pythagoreans, who make up nearly half the total, we have the specious advantage of possessing two kinds of literary production, which could thus be taken as signalling a double attitude to philosophy. We possess nine letters, one attributed to Myia, one to Melissa and the others to Theano, which discuss the tasks and duties of (presumably Pythagorean) women regarding the upbringing and education of children, women’s roles in the household and in society, their behaviour towards their husbands and their husbands’ adulteries, and so on. We also possess fragments of treatises, some of which are of a decidedly more theoretical bent. In particular, Theano’s On Piety discusses the well-known Pythagorean doctrine that number is the principle of all things; Aesara of Lucania’s On Human Nature contains an account, surely derived from Plato, of the tripartite soul and a parallel between it, the household and the city19; likewise, the two treatises On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom, in differing styles and of different dates, attributed to two women by the name of Perictione; and the On the Moderation of Women, attributed to Phyntis, that for all its conventional contents20 also includes a very rare discussion of the nature of women and of the legitimacy for them to “do philosophy.” As regards the other women philosophers, Waithe devotes a chapter to Aspasia, whose character is reconstructed principally on the basis of the funerary oration that Socrates attributes to her in the Menexenus and that may make her more of a sophist

 Even though Waithe refers to the “perspective of a woman.” See also Marguerite Deslauriers (2012). An alternative, and less common, view invokes a “female mode of doing philosophy,” which calls for a further redefinition of philosophy. This view has been advanced to allow a reevaluation of “minor figures,” meaning those women (but also some men) about whom we have scarce information or whose writings (if any) have not come down to us; see the article by Pellò (2020). 18  Ten Pythagoreans (Themistoclea, Theano I, Arignote, Myia, Damo, Aesara of Lucania, Phintys of Sparta, Perictione I, Theano II, Perictione II), to whom four chapters are dedicated; Aspasia of Miletus, Diotima of Mantinea, Julia Domna, Makrina, and Hypatia, one chapter each; and finally Arete, Asclepigenia, Axiothea, Cleobulina, Hipparchia, and Lasthenia, in Waithe’s last chapter. 19  Some scholars argue that the author was a man, Aresa (cf. Thesleff 1965, pp. 48–50). On this point, see Plant (2004, p. 81). 20  A point on which Adamson insists (2014, p. 299). 17

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than a philosopher. The chapter dedicated to Diotima of Mantinea regards her as a historical person who originated the version of the theory of Ideas that we find in Plato’s Symposium.21 We have ample information about Julia Domna, who was the wife of the Emperor Septimius Severus, but relatively little about her philosophical activity beyond her studying and discussing the subject with a circle of mathematicians and philosophers that she gathered around herself, as well as her correcting a text by a Neo-Pythagorean author (Philostratus, VS II 30; Dio Cassius, LXXV and LXXVII). A further chapter is devoted to Makrina, which is based on the testimony of her brother Gregory of Nyssa, who reports a philosophical conversation with her concerning the immortality of the soul.22 Waithe’s chapter on Hypatia analyses two mathematical texts that, although not transmitted under her name, Waithe regards as attributable to her23: a commentary on Diophantus’ Arithmeticorum and a commentary on Book III of Ptolemy’s Syntaxis Mathematica. The last chapter covers six women about whom very little is known, but who were philosophers and, in some cases, prominent figures in their day. Arete was the daughter of Aristippus and his successor as the head of the school of Cyrene. Asclepigenia was the daughter of Plutarch and lived in Athens in the time of Hypatia, teaching in a Neo-Platonic school. After reading Plato’s Republic, Axiothea became famous for having wanted to become his disciple and for following his lectures in men’s clothing. Cleobulina was said by Thales to be “wise” (see supra, Sect. 1.3). Hipparchia was the wife of Crates and the only woman to whom Diogenes Laertius dedicates a chapter of her own; she fully adopted the Cynic way of life of her husband. Lastly, Lasthenia was a pupil of Speusippus. Beyond the theoretical framework proposed by Waithe, which only considers women who have thought or written about philosophy, we find the even more selective criterion adopted by Jane McIntosh Snyder. According to her, we should regard as philosophers only those who were authors, either because their works have come down to us or because our sources say that they wrote philosophical works (Snyder 1989).24 By this measure, we have only eight women philosophers. Leontion was a hetaera and a friend of Epicurus, and Cicero reports that she wrote in criticism of Theophrastus (Cic., Nat. D. I 93); Hipparchia, whom we have already mentioned, is reported by the Suda to have composed “Hypotheses, Epicheiremata and Propositions against Theodorus the Atheist.” Snyder also accepts the Pythagorean women to whom writings are attributed (Perictione, Myia, Phyntis, Melissa), and likewise includes Theano, noting the lost texts that are credited to her by the Suda. As for Hypatia, in addition to the rediscovered mathematical writings to which we have already referred, the Suda ascribes to her a treatise entitled Astronomical  On the historicity of Diotima see Warren (2009b, pp. 34–36); Browning (2009, pp. 53–60, especially pp. 54–56). 22  Gregory of Nyssa wrote his sister’s biography (Vita Macrinae) and he had a philosophical discussion on the soul and resurrection with her. 23  Waithe draws on Tannery (1895), Halma (1821), and Montucla (1960). 24  But, as Snyder herself admits, this criterion would lead us to exclude interesting figures such as Socrates from the history of philosophy. 21

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Canon and a commentary On the Conics of Apollonius; we may also recall the seven letters by her pupil Synesius, which are very fine, but do not tell us much about Hypatia’s activity as a philosopher. In a similarly restrictive vein, Marguerite Deslauriers apparently suggests that we should not regard the letters of Theano, Myia and Melissa as being properly philosophical, because they discuss the education of children, the behavior expected of women, and faithfulness to unfaithful husbands, which may be dismissed as “moral platitudes” (Deslauriers 2012). The only two Pythagorean writings that Deslauriers credits as being philosophical are: (1) the fragment attributed to Aesara of Lucania’s On Human Nature, because it contributes to the ongoing debate on the structure of the individual, of the household and of the city; and (2) the letter of Phyntis, On the Moderation of Women, which, though there remain doubts regarding not only the authenticity of the text but also about the very existence of its supposed author,25 is a significant text for its discussion of women and philosophy. The other women philosophers Deslauriers considers are Ptolemais, to whom Porphyry attributes a theory of harmony,26 and Hypatia, because their serious engagement with musical and mathematical theories have included them in the philosophical canon; and lastly, Makrina, who, as Deslauriers recognises, maintained that the pathê of the soul are incrustations. In short, a total of five women philosophers remain.27 It is easy to see that with ever-stricter versions of Waithe’s criterion, the number of women philosophers worthy of note is drastically, if not to say arbitrarily, reduced. We have not yet set out the various difficulties that arose, or that were subsequently pointed out for Waithe’s selection. After all, for some of the women philosophers whose texts might seem to have come down to us, there have long been problems of authenticity. Regarding Hypatia, enough has already been said. For the Pythagoreans, there have been repeated allegations that their writings are forgeries or pseudonymous works by men in the Hellenistic period (Thesleff 1961) or later (Städele 1980).28 With the aid of Harper, Waithe dedicates a whole chapter of her book to maintaining their authenticity. Other women scholars hold that there is something to these allegations, and Deslauriers refers to the widespread practice of pseudonymous writing, which often appeared under the names of celebrated women. For my part, while I incline to the view that these texts may have been composed by men, I do not think that the question has been definitively answered.29 There also emerges a general problem about the attribution to women philosophers of doctrines that were expressed by others. One exemplary case concerns Diotima of Mantinea. While recognising that the proposal is controversial (Waithe  Cf. Plant (2004, p. 84).  Cf. Plant (2004, p. 88). 27  Adamson (2014), on the other hand, recognises ten women philosophers: Theano, Hypatia, Arete, Aspasia, Diotima (whom he considers a literary invention), Makrina, Leontion, Hipparchia, Axiothea, and Lasthenia. 28  Städele dates the majority of letters to the first–second century CE. 29  See, for instance Pomeroy (1975, pp. 133–134) and Snyder (1989, pp. 110–113). 25 26

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1987, pp. xiv–xv), Waithe ascribes to her the version of the theory of Ideas that we find in Plato’s Symposium. Other scholars, such as Deslauriers and Adamson, are convinced that Diotima is a Platonic construction and that the question of her existence is unanswerable.30 They are probably right, but the uncertainty about her existence, and the assertion that she is a Platonic construction, does not exclude that she existed and elaborated her own theory of Ideas. After all, the same problem arises about what we are to attribute to the character of Socrates who appears in the Platonic dialogues. Similar considerations apply to Aspasia, whose “philosophical” contribution amounts to a reading of Plato’s Menexenus. But do these obstacles truly prevent us from finding a place for women in the history of ancient philosophy? My answer is that they do not. We are often faced with problems of (i) authenticity, (ii) a lack of direct transmission, and (iii) the verifiability of our sources’ credentials as regards male philosophers—but this has not stopped us from including them in the history of ancient philosophy. So it is hard to see, with all the care and safeguards that are applicable, why we should not do the same for women. It would then seem reasonable to propose that ancient women philosophers should be neither gathered together in a Historia Mulierum nor in a chapter of their own, both of which might suggest a sort of ghetto for the philosophy practised by women. Rather, it would be healthier to hold them to the same standards as are applied to men, including such relations as those of master to pupil, recalling that Arete was head of the Cyrenaic school and Hypatia that of the Alexandrian Platonists (Socrates Scholasticus, Hist. eccl. VII 15). Likewise, following the chronology, it might be useful to add to Waithe’s listing, thus including Leontion and Ptolemais, as well as new entries such as Plotina, wife of the Emperor Trajan, for whose Epicureanism we have important epigraphic sources (Salomoni 2020). In this direction, Ménage’s list of women philosophers might serve as a useful and interesting catalogue, but only as a starting point for further discussion.31 What sort of philosophy did women practise in antiquity? A reply to this question depends, among other things, on how we read the so-called “moral platitudes” of the Pythagorean women. In one important sense, they can be regarded as an early form of applied ethics.32 While some scholars regard their antifeminism as a reason for doubting the authenticity of these texts (Adamson 2014; Centrone 2014, p. 45), it seems more to the point to observe that “it would be unreasonable to expect the Neo-Pythagorean women to write like modern feminists” (Pomeroy 1984, p. 68). In the ancient world, women studied philosophy, engaged in philosophical discussions regarding the immortality of the soul, and debated its relations to the household and the city; they composed texts treating not only the condition of  See Adamson (2014, p.  302). Deslauriers (2012), following Dover, considers as extremely unlikely “that, even if she really existed, she entertained the Platonic theory of Ideas in any form” (Deslauriers 2012, p. 347 citing Dover 1980, p. 137). 31  On problems and criteria for a gender-inclusive account of the history of Western philosophy, see Warren (2009a, pp. 1–26). 32  See for example Jufresa (1995, pp. 2–13); see also Pomeroy (2013, p. 60). 30

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women in the society of their day, but also mathematical and philosophical topics; they ran schools and they created philosophical circles. This much can be gleaned from the sources available to us, and it would be well that it were better known and appreciated.

1.5  Conclusions Ancient women philosophers are practically absent from the standard histories of ancient philosophy and, more generally, have been excluded from the traditional philosophical canon.33 Sometimes, it is thought that this exclusion is due to cultural, social or political factors, given that women have only recently gained access to professions and active social and political roles. Yet, in the specific case of philosophy, more theoretical justifications regarding the nature of women and men have been adduced, according to which women have been traditionally identified with the lower cognitive faculties, with the body and with the irrational, while men are associated with reason.34 We need not dwell on the enormous literature that has explored this identification in Aristotle and a whole misogynistic tradition; it will suffice to refer to the ample bibliography on these issues found in the Stanford Encyclopedia article with which we began. Even Plato, who inherited the Pythagorean doctrine that the intellectual soul is fleshless and hence sexless,35 seems unable to carry the theory through.3637 Yet it remains the case that for all that they often regarded women as a weaker category, similar to children or the elderly, some philosophers—such as Pythagoras, Epicurus and the Stoics—accepted them into their circles.38 As hundreds of sources attest, women were able to practise philosophy, and many of them could do so in “protected situations” thanks to their husbands, fathers, tutors or brothers39; so much so that some have been misled into thinking that Ménage regarded such relations as decisive for inclusion in his list.40

 On the causes of this general exclusion of women from the philosophical canon see Witt & Shapiro (2015). 34  The foundational text in this connection is Lloyd (1984). 35  See Diogenes Laertius, VIII 30; also Hawley (1984, p.  71). This view would explain why Pythagoras opened his school also to women. 36  See Annas (1996, pp. 3–12); also Davies (2020). 37  On Plato’s genderlessness of the soul and its reception by Neoplatonists, see in this volume the contribution made by Cambron-Goulet and Côté-Remy, as well as the response and discussion contributions made by Michalewski and by Schultz. [Eds.] 38  While Pythagoras, Protagoras, Clement of Alexandria and Minucius Felix seem to have regarded woman as weaker, Epicurus is an exception (Hawley 1984, p. 71). 39  On the topic of the presence of women and the importance of family within these circles, see Cambron-Goulet and Côté-Remy’s contribution to this volume. [Eds.] 40  See Pellò (2020) and my discussion supra, Sect. 1.3; and Snyder (1989, p. 101). 33

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Since Ménage could pick out more than sixty-five women philosophers—and since, despite the fragmentary nature of the material at hand, more than twenty of them have earned their place and should be allotted mention in histories of philosophy—we might say that the ancients themselves did not manage to exclude women altogether. If anything, they were more powerfully excluded later on, to the point that in the seventeenth century Ménage felt called upon to write a Historia Mulierum Philosopharum, a work which remained largely ignored until the late twentieth century. Only on the crest of the feminist movements of the 1960s could Waithe write a history of women philosophers. As regards the devaluation of women, this is unfortunately a recurrent feature not only of the ancient sources, but also of modern and contemporary texts, and it often takes the form of gender stereotypes. Although there are many others, I conclude with this telling example41: There were so many women Pythagoreans that Philochorus, the Athenian grammarian, wrote a book about them, according to Suidas, who, in speaking of Philochorus, calls that book, Collection of Heroic Women. […] it could seem remarkable that there were so many Pythagorean women philosophers when the Pythagoreans had to observe silence for five years and had many secrets which they were not allowed to divulge, as women are very talkative and can scarcely keep a secret. (Ménage, Historia Mulierum Philosopharum, trans. 1984)

References Primary Sources Dio Cassius. (2006). Storia romana: Libri LXVIII-LXXIII (A. Valvo & A. Stroppa, Ed.). Rizzoli. Cicero. (1989). On the nature of the gods (H. Rackham, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Gregory of Nyssa. (1863). De anima et resurrectione (J.-P. Migne, Ed.). Patrologia Greaca, 46. Diogenes Laertius. (2013). Lives of the eminent philosophers (T.  Dorandi, Ed.). Harvard University Press. Philostratus. (2016). Flavii Philostrati Vitas sophistarum (R.  S. Stefec, Ed.). Oxford University Press. Socrates Scholasticus. (1893). Socrates’ ecclesiastical history (W. Bright, Ed). Clarendon.

 See Hawley (1984, pp. 71–76). Snyder (1989) contains specific examples: on Leontion, whom Cicero regards as a little prostitute for daring to write against Theophrastus, see p.  103; on Hipparchia, about whom the sources are more interested in her licentious way of life than in her philosophical writings, see p. 107; on Hypatia, whom Photius regards as doubly inferior to the Platonist Isidore, both as a woman relative to a man and as a mathematician relative to a philosopher, see p. 114.

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Secondary Sources Adamson, P. (2014). Classical philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, volume 1. Oxford University Press. Adamson, P. (2015). Philosophy in the Hellenistic & Roman worlds: A history of philosophy without any gaps, volume 2. Oxford University Press. Annas, J. (1996). Plato’s Republic and feminism. In J. K. Ward (Ed.), Feminism and ancient philosophy (pp. 3–12). Routledge and Kegan Paul. Beretta, G. (2014). Ipazia d’Alessandria. Editori Riuniti. Browning, E. A. (2009). Diotima and Plato: On love, desire, and wisdom. In K. J. Warren (Ed.), An unconventional history of Western philosophy (pp. 53–61). Rowman & Littlefield. Centrone, B. (2014). Review of the book, Pythagorean women: Their history and writings, by S. Pomeroy. AHB Online Reviews, 4, 45–47. Craveri, B. (2001). La cività della conversazione. Adelphi. Davies, R. (2020). Donne guardiane? Un ragionamento dirottato. In M. Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp.  3–15). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Deslauriers, M. (2012). Women, education, and philosophy. In S. L. James & S. Dillon (Eds.), A companion to women in the ancient world (pp. 343–353). Wiley-Blackwell. Dover, D. (1980). Plato: Symposium. Cambridge University Press. Fumaroli, M. (2015). La République des Lettres. Gallimard. Halma, N. B. (1821). Commentaire de Théon d’Alexandrie sur le premier livre de la Composition mathématique de Ptolemée. Merlin. Hawley, R. (1984). The problem of women philosophers in ancient Greece. In L.  Archer, S. Fischler, & M. Wyke (Eds.), Women in ancient societies (pp. 70–87). Macmillan. Jufresa, M. (1995). Savoir féminin et sectes pythagoriciennes.  Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 2, 2–13. Lloyd, G. (1984). The man of reason: “Male” and “female” in Western philosophy. University of Minnesota Press. Ménage, G. (1663). Observationes et emendationes in Diogenem Laertium. Martin. Ménage, G. (1690). Historia mulierum philosopharum. Apud Anissonios, Joan. Posuel & Claudium Rigaud. Ménage, G. (1984). The history of women philosophers (B. H. Zedler, Trans.). University Press of America. Ménage, G. (2005). Storia delle donne filosofe (L. Parolotto, Trans.). Ombre Corte. Ménage, G. (2006). Histoire des femmes philosophes (M. Vaney, Trans.). Arléa. Ménage, G. (2009). Historia de las mujeres filósofas (M. Otero Vidal, Trans.). Herder Editorial. Ménage, G. (2019). Geschichte der Philosophinnen (C. Kaiser, Trans.). Felix Meiner Verlag. Montucla, J. F. (1960). Histoire des mathématiques. Librairie Scientifique et Technique. Pellò, C. (2020). “Non solo uomini, ma anche donne…”. La presenza femminile nella filosofia greca: Il caso delle pitagoriche. In M.  Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp. 55–78). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Plant, I. M. (2004). Women writers of ancient Greece and Rome. University of Oklahoma Press. Pomeroy, S. (1975). Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves. Schocken Books. Pomeroy, S. (1984). Women in Hellenistic Egypt. Schoken Books. Pomeroy, S. (2013). Pythagorean women: Their history and writings. Johns Hopkins University Press. Salomoni, S. (2020). Pompeia Plotina: L’imperatrice filosofa. In M.  Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp. 131–161). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Snyder, J. M. (1989). Women philosophers of the Hellenistic and Roman world. In The woman and the lyre: Women writers in Classical Greece and Rome (pp.  99–121). Southern Illinois University Press.

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Städele, A. (1980). Die Briefe des Pythagoras und der Pythagoreer. Hein. Tannery, P. (1895). Prolegomena. In Diophantus of Alexandria, Diophanti Alexandrini Opera Omnia (Vol. 2, pp. iii–xlvii). B. G. Teubneri. Thesleff, H. (1961). Introduction to the Pythagorean texts of the Hellenistic period. Åbo Akademi. Thesleff, H. (1965). The Pythagorean texts of the Hellenistic period. Åbo Akademi. Waithe, M. E. (Ed.). (1987). A history of women philosophers, volume I: Ancient women philosophers, 600 B.C.–500 A.D. Martinus Nijhoff. Warren, K. J. (2009a). Lead essay: 2,600 years of the history of Western philosophy. In K. J. Warren (Ed.), An unconventional history of Western philosophy (pp. 1–26). Rowman & Littlefield. Warren, K.  J. (2009b). Plato and Diotima. In K.  J. Warren (Ed.), An unconventional history of Western philosophy (pp. 27–36). Rowman & Littlefield. Witt, C., & Shapiro, L. (2015). Feminist history of philosophy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2015 ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/spr2015/entries/feminism-­femhist/ Zedler, B. H. (1984). Introduction. In G. Ménage, The history of women philosophers (B. H. Zedler, Trans.) (pp. vii–xxviii). University Press of America. Maddalena Bonelli  obtained a degree in philosophy cum laude at the Department of Philosophy in the University of Milan in 1990, a “Certificat de Spécialisation en Philosophie” at the University of Geneva in 1993 and a Ph. D. in ancient philosophy at the University of Geneva, Department of Philosophy, in 1999. She was a research fellow and teacher in the Department of Philosophy of the University of Geneva (1994–2002) and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne (2002–2006), and since 2007 she has been a researcher and lecturer in history of ancient philosophy at the Department of Literature, Philosophy and Communication of the University of Bergamo. She has written many articles and reviews in Italian, French and English that have appeared in journals, edited books and conference proceedings. She has published three books, Alessandro di Afrodisia e la metafisica come scienza dimostrativa, Bibliopolis, Napoli (2001), Timée le Sophiste: Lexique platonicien, Philosophia Antiqua, Brill, Leiden, (2007), Leggere il Fedone di Platone, Carocci, Roma (2015). She works in the field of ancient philosophy. Her main research interests lie in ancient metaphysics, ancient logic and history of women philosophers in antiquity.

Chapter 2

Women Philosophers in Antiquity and the Reshaping of Philosophy Katharine R. O’Reilly

Abstract This paper is a response to and discussion of Maddalena Bonelli’s “Women philosophers in antiquity: Open questions and some results.” It also aims to advance the general discussion of the issues Bonelli raises. In it I contextualise Bonelli’s discussion, and take up three of her questions: What is the status of the work of restoring ancient women to the philosophical canon? What criteria ought we to use to decide who counts as a philosopher? What sort of philosophy did women practice in antiquity, and in what ways might the restoration of ancient women thinkers to the canon change the way we conceive of ancient philosophy itself? I consider the way in which Bonelli’s paper advances the discussion of each question, raise some worries about the discussions, and provide suggestions for how we might think about these issues further. I maintain that the reshaping of the philosophical canon that takes place when we integrate ancient women involves a reshaping of the discipline, and of our methods for accessing it. This is a result I argue we ought to embrace rather than resist. I conclude with a summary of the main contributions of Bonelli’s paper. Keywords  Ancient women philosophers · Canon · Ancient philosophy · Women in philosophy · Method · Ancient biography · Ancient Greek philosophy · Meta-philosophy

K. R. O’Reilly (*) Department of philosophy, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_2

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2.1  Introduction In her “Women philosophers in antiquity: Open questions and some results” Maddalena Bonelli provides insight into philosophy’s treatment of ancient women philosophers and the history of the status these women have held in the discipline. A response to and discussion of hers, my paper also aims to advance the general discussion of the issues she raises. Bonelli’s explicit objective is twofold: first, to describe and evaluate what she considers the two most significant treatments of ancient women philosophers: the seventeenth century account by Gilles Ménage, and the 1980s work of Mary-Ellen Waithe; second, to defend the “revalorisation” of these women, in part by arguing in favour of a new set of criteria for inclusion in the philosophical canon. Along the way, Bonelli provides evidence of the prejudiced manner in which women have been discussed (if they are discussed at all) in many compendia. She argues, rightly, that the discipline would be better served by a canon which accurately reflected the importance of these figures, and suggests that the ancient sources provide enough resources to paint a different, fairer, and much more interesting picture. The title of the paper signals that it will concern itself with “open questions” and results, aiming to contribute to “the ongoing discussion of the status of ancient women philosophers” (Sect. 1.1).1 In responding to the paper I will contextualise Bonelli’s discussion, and then take up three of the open questions it deals with: What is the status of the work of restoring ancient women to the philosophical canon? What criteria ought we to use to decide who counts as a philosopher? What sort of philosophy did women practice in antiquity, and in what ways might the restoration of ancient women thinkers to the canon change the way we conceive of ancient philosophy itself?2 I will consider the way in which Bonelli’s paper advances the discussion of each of these questions, raise some worries about the discussions, and provide suggestions for how we might think about these issues further. I will maintain that the reshaping of the philosophical canon that takes place when we integrate ancient women involves a reshaping of the discipline, and of our methods for accessing it. This is an extension of one of Waithe’s and Bonelli’s points, and a result I argue we ought to embrace rather than resist. I will conclude with a summary of the main contributions of Bonelli’s paper.

 All in-text citations refer to Bonelli’s paper in this volume, unless otherwise indicated.  My discussion will focus on women in ancient Greek philosophy, but some of these same questions could be asked about women in other traditions, and those examples could in turn inform analysis of the Western tradition. 1 2

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2.2  Restoring Ancient Women to the Philosophical Canon In the expository and evaluative overview of existing treatments of ancient women philosophers, Bonelli gives us a flavour of the way in which post-Classical philosophy has characterised these figures. Her main focus is Ménage’s Historia Mulierum Philosopharum, which he published in 1690, and volume one of Waithe’s A History of Women Philosophers—Ancient Women Philosophers 600  B.C.–500  A.D., published in 1987, which Waithe edited and authored many sections of. The temporal distance between these two works is striking, for it is not a quirk of Bonelli’s paper that these two are singled out as significant: there is very little published concerning ancient women philosophers in the nearly 300 years between them.3 It is perhaps not surprising that Ménage’s work failed to inspire further research. He was satirised for his work on women more generally in his lifetime, and the Historia itself is problematic and very limited in its engagement with the ideas of the women he includes.4 It is, however, shocking that no historian of philosophy made any serious and sustained attempt to engage with ancient women philosophers between then and the 1980s. We readers are immediately attuned to the question of what progress has been made in the decades since, and whether things have improved. Bonelli notes that Ménage often fixates on the women’s familial or romantic relationships. Here we might acknowledge that this is reflective of the ancient sources he is working with, and particularly characteristic of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, which he styled the Historia as a supplement to. These sources all too often situate women thinkers according not to their ideas or even the school to which they were aligned, but, foremost, to the male relative, lover or husband whose own interest allowed them some access to a philosophical circle.5 Waithe (1987, pp. ix–x) acknowledges this about the source material, too. But Bonelli is right (Sect. 1.2, n. 9) not to let Ménage off the hook so easily: his lack of engagement with the women’s philosophical ideas is only partly reflective of the source material he draws on. It seems right to think that his own lack of philosophical training and ability limits the discussion more than the source material itself. His treatments also fail to challenge the classical sources in any meaningful way: we do not see him discuss the reasons why women are so often positioned relative to a male relation, or why the ideas of women are not better preserved. But even a more philosophically perceptive writer would still find huge challenges in exposing the 3  That said, the seventeenth century saw some other, limited coverage of ancient women philosophers in doxographies. In addition to Ménage’s project, this includes the works of Jean de la Forge (1663) and Marguerite Buffet (1668). For other works in the period between Ménage and Waithe (1987) see Waithe (2015, pp. 25–26). 4  For a discussion of Ménage’s work see Rée (2002, pp. 648–649). 5  This “coat-tailing” trend is discussed by Waithe in a newer piece (2015), and the trend for describing ancient women philosophers relative to a male philosopher, or based on physical appearance, is discussed in Hawley (1994). Hutton (2019, pp. 686–687) discusses how this trend continues at least into the early modern period (albeit with different labels) and continues to exclude or marginalize women philosophers.

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ideas of these women using the evidence we have, and this is a problem for Waithe’s book, too. Bonelli juxtaposes Ménage with Waithe, whose book was indeed revolutionary. Volume One marked the first serious attempt to restore to the history of philosophy its ancient women, by virtue of its engagement with their intellectual interests.6 Bonelli lauds Waithe’s work on three counts: for valorising ancient women philosophers (which involves a reconsideration of the ancient sources), for carefully analysing texts attributable to ancient women via the sections of her book written by Vicky-Lynn Harper, and for undermining prejudices often seen in the male-authored accounts of ancient women (Sect. 1.2). Waithe’s work certainly did make it more difficult for those who would deny ancient women a place in the canon to continue to do so. Bonelli’s paper is successful in looking backward and providing an account of these two works, which are representative of the progress made on the restoration of ancient women to the philosophical canon up to the late 1980s. But what of the work done since then? How do ancient women philosophers fit into our research and teaching now? Alongside the discussion of Ménage, and the critique of his anecdotal style and coverage, we could take the discussion further by asking what standards we ought to hold him to, and reflecting on whether our current history of philosophy has done much to restore the ideas of these important figures. Indeed, alongside the recognition of the importance of the contribution of Waithe’s book, it would be useful to see a consideration or at least awareness of some of the issues raised by the collection.7 Despite its many virtues, Bonelli’s account is too generous, and a failure to acknowledge the edited volume’s shortcomings might give the impression that much of the work of restoring the thought of ancient women has been done, when in fact much remains. In its eagerness to convince readers of the importance of ancient women philosophers, Waithe’s volume paints too optimistic a picture of what could be gleaned from the surviving evidence, based on the work that had been done already at the time of writing, and the limited range of modern, critical editions of the relevant texts.8 But it opens a door, and only in the decades since, and slowly, have we seen more in-depth and measured work appear which has the methodological and philological underpinning to successfully reach the philosophy of these thinkers.9

6  At least in the restrictive sense of being focused exclusively on women philosophers. Christine de Pizan’s Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405), which includes some women philosophers, is an early example of engagement with women intellectuals more broadly construed. 7  Beginning perhaps with the misgivings of Clark (1988) and Dancy (1989) in their respective reviews. Deslauriers (2012) also makes some critical points aimed at Waithe’s 1987 analysis. 8  Among other things, this risks downplaying the degree to which women were excluded from philosophy, as Deslauriers (2012, p. 345) points out. 9  Without perhaps wanting to plug her own project (as editor), works by Davies (2020), Pellò (2020) and Salomoni (2020), mentioned by Bonelli, are part of the wave of promising new research, some discussion of which would add an encouraging forward-looking dimension to this discussion.

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Here again, there is an unasked question: why was Waithe’s book not fully successful in giving us access to the ideas of these women, and why have more successful treatments taken decades longer to appear? The answer involves both the state of the evidence and the barriers faced by those who are interested in finding support for this research. In the evidence we have of ancient women philosophers, there are issues of authorship, authenticity, and content. There are also very few direct writings which survive, and none for which we are certain of the authorship, or even whether the author was a woman. Some of the most promising writings, the Pythagorean Letters, to which Waithe devotes a good deal of space, are difficult to date, and include content which is not obvious or uncontentious as philosophical material (as Bonelli discusses in Sect. 1.4). Waithe notes how the dearth of modern translations of the works by ancient women is restrictive to her enterprise.10 These issues, alongside a more general prejudice, have led to a systematic lack of support for research on these women. They are issues that take time to work through, and that work only started after Waithe reminded the discipline that there were these figures to work on, in all their complexity. Though these issues are mentioned briefly by Bonelli (e.g. Sect. 1.4), we would benefit from her full insight into their impact on the state of the scholarship. She is quite right (Sect. 1.4) that these issues should not prevent us from working on ancient women, since equivalent textual issues do not deter us from working on ancient men. While the comparison she invokes in service of this point is perhaps not the most apt,11 it is right that the hard work it can take to get to the philosophical ideas of an ancient woman is equivalent to effort we are generally willing to expend on male thinkers. Indeed, with now firmly established philosophical interest in difficult-to-access Pre-Socratics, as well as in other philosophical traditions which have their own barriers to access, scholars and students regularly demonstrate their willingness to do such work in order to access thought that is deemed worthy of such effort. Positioning the philosophical thought of ancient women as being equally if not more valuable is a credit to Bonelli’s discussion.

 Waithe (1987, p. xix). Waithe’s introduction gives an account of the state of the evidence at the time she started assembling it, which is as surprising as it is depressing. 11  Bonelli compares the use of Plato’s dialogues as evidence for the ideas of the historical figure Diotima to that same question with respect to Socrates. But these are not readily comparable, since there is independent evidence for the existence of Socrates, and this is not the case for Diotima. Her point about “lack of direct transmission and the verifiability of our sources’ credentials as regards male philosophers” (Sect. 1.4) might more aptly be made by reference to figures such as Thales or Heraclitus, for instance, or Hypatia versus Pythagoras, as evoked by Waithe (2015, p. 27). 10

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2.3  Who Counts as a Philosopher? Part two of Bonelli’s paper is concerned with the criteria Ménage uses to determine which ancient women philosophers to include in his list; part three asks the same question of Waithe, and then considers some other, more recent examples. These sections again take Ménage and Waithe as a starting point, asking what criteria they use, and what questions their works raise for us (Sect. 1.3). The second main question I wish to raise is a methodological one concerning this part of Bonelli’s discussion, and what criteria we ought to use to decide who counts as a philosopher, and particularly a woman philosopher. Here I worry about why and whether the goals of the paper are best served by focusing so heavily on Ménage and Waithe. Bonelli says that “It is […] fitting to start with these two texts not least because they have become points of reference for subsequent discussion of ancient women philosophers, but also because they provide grounds for raising questions that are still fundamental for the re-inclusion and the revalorisation of ancient women philosophers” (Sect. 1.1). While this might justify starting the discussion with these two texts, we need to quickly move beyond them in order to do justice to the current state of the debates Bonelli is interested in.12 When Bonelli invokes other scholars’ criteria, such as those of Deslauriers (e.g. Sect. 1.4, n. 17), Snyder (Sect. 1.4, n. 24) and Adamson (Sect. 1.4, n. 27), the discussion turns to whether there is a “female mode” of philosophy, what we do with “minor” philosophical figures (male or female) where evidence is scarce, and whether the case of ancient women might prompt us to redefine philosophy and philosophers entirely.13 Pursuit of these questions seems more helpful for progressing the discussion in the way the paper aims to, than does the narrow focus on the two older works. Bonelli’s own suggestions for the formation of a new set of criteria (Sect. 1.4) are welcome, could figure more prominently, and could be distinguished more clearly from Waithe’s. Bonelli rejects Ménage’s criteria as being too liberal (Sect. 1.2), and indeed his attitude towards who counts as a philosopher does seem more indicative of thoughtlessness than pluralism. She prefers Waithe’s more restrictive set, which Bonelli characterises as including “only those women philosophers who are authors (or supposed as such) of writings that have come down to us or to whom philosophical theories have been attributed” (Sect. 1.2).14 Inspired perhaps by her understanding of Waithe, Bonelli argues that we ought to apply to women the same standards for inclusion in the philosophical canon as we do for  Readers would particularly benefit from acknowledgement and some discussion of the advances made on this question by works in feminist history of philosophy, such as (but by no means limited to) Alanen & Witt (2004). 13  Witt (2006) and Waithe (2015) also suggest and discuss relevant criteria. 14  This is not quite right: for instance, in her final chapter Waithe considers women such as Arete of Cyrene, for whom we have no direct writings or clear attributions of theories, at least insofar as the treatment in Waithe is concerned. Later, Bonelli characterises Waithe’s criterion as “the exclusive consideration of women who have thought or written about philosophy” (Sect. 1.3). This is more accurate. 12

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men. On this point I wish to raise questions of whether those standards are clear, and whether those same standards are appropriate for women or if, indeed, we might have reason to be more inclusive when it comes to women. Bonelli defends Waithe’s criterion, calling it “at first sight, wholly convincing” (Sect. 1.3). Though she goes on to suggest her own version, she remains convinced of the idea that “it would be healthier to hold [ancient women philosophers] to the same standards as are applied to men […]” (Sect. 1.4). Yet Waithe (1987, p. xii) herself admits that her criterion is unsatisfactory, and merely the best she could do at the time of editing the volume as part of the undertaking of a huge, multi-volume project. There is an expectation woven through Waithe’s methodological section that further research would support the formation of criteria more appropriate to ancient women (pp. xii–xxi). There is also a recognition that a criterion involving looking for work on traditional philosophical topics is biased towards topics which have been determined by the male philosophical agenda (Waithe 1987, p. xviii).15 The discussion of criteria would benefit from distinguishing at least two different types of criteria which are implicitly at play when we consider who counts as an ancient philosopher, whether male or female. The first is a kind of social-­ anthropological criterion which asks which persons belonged to the profession in a historical sense.16 The second is one which asks in whose work or thought we find evidence of philosophical ideas. This latter criterion is more open, and the two may not necessarily overlap. In order to evaluate Bonelli’s proposal, we need clarification of the type of criteria she is suggesting we adopt, since it is not clear from defaulting to whatever criteria we use for men. Both Waithe and Bonelli include this promissory note without pinning down how they understand the standards of male canonisation to work. This is a process which is sensitive to historiographical concerns; greater clarity on the process of canonisation in general, which is not necessarily one which needs to be split by gender, would benefit this debate.17 It may be that avoiding the exclusion of women forms part of correcting or refining that process. This has not been a source of contemporary reflection on ancient philosophers, but it deserves to be. It may even result in criteria that pick out a broad set of ancient women philosophers—as broad as Ménage, even, though on different grounds. Perhaps the standards for canonisation applied to male philosophers are too restrictive, and those applied to women need to be different and less restrictive. We know that there is a history of resistance to labelling women as philosophers. They are instead called heterai (Aspasia), priestesses (Diotima) or mystics, saints (Macrina) or poets, mathematicians or astronomers (Hypatia), or are figured mostly or exclusively as the mother/ sister/ wife/ student/ correspondent or maybe teacher of some male philosopher (Aspasia, Arete, Sosipatra, Macrina, etc.). Or they are just left out. Minimally, then, we ought to think that failing to be recognised as a

 See also Waithe (2015, p. 23).  The conditions for which will vary by time and place, as Waithe (2015, p. 22) notes. 17  For reflections on canonisation see Rée (2002), especially pp.  644–652, Witt (2006) and Waithe (2015). 15 16

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philosopher in their own time ought not to rule them out.18 Perhaps this ought not rule out men, either, but as we don’t find the same historic reluctance to call men philosophers in the first instance, this is less of an issue for male thinkers. Might work on ancient women also license the use of different means for the reconstruction of their thought? For instance, Bonelli mentions in passing the suggestion that women philosophers could be counted as such on the basis of their way of life (Sect. 1.3). There are plenty of examples of male philosophers for whom a philosophical lifestyle contributes to our reasons for considering them philosophers (Diogenes of Sinope, Socrates, Aristippus the Elder, etc.).19 But if our only evidence of some women as philosophers is that they lived a philosophical lifestyle, and there is no direct record of more explicit philosophical activity, the systematic resistance to keeping records of such women may mean that we ought to accept different evidence for them than we do for men. The re-integration of ancient women philosophers into the discipline might require a shift in our methods, as well as a good deal of reflection on the methods we currently use, and how they have helped maintain a canon which excluded these women. Ancient biography, for instance, may be a more heavily weighted piece of evidence for ancient women philosophers than we would want to use it as for some men. Genres such as poetry, letters and religious texts may not be so easily dismissed if they are found to be key vehicles for the thought of ancient women.20

2.4  A  ncient Women’s Philosophical Practices and the Changing Conception of the Discipline This brings me to my final questions, borrowed from Waithe and Bonelli, as to what sort of philosophy women practiced in antiquity. Does it look different to the kind that men were involved with? In what ways might the restoration of ancient women thinkers to the canon change the way we conceive of ancient philosophy—or philosophy simpliciter—itself? For instance, there may be an impetus to shift the scope of what counts as a philosophical topic.21 Some of the resistance to considering  Conversely, Waithe (2015, p. 22) argues that being designated a philosopher in one’s own time is not itself sufficient as a criterion, nor is calling oneself a philosopher. 19  There is plenty of interest in thinking about “philosophy as a way of life” in the ancient context— see, for instance, Hadot (1995). But this is usually focused on idiosyncratic male figures. Consideration of the sometimes painfully domestic realm women thinkers often occupied has not yet been an area of such reflection. 20  On genre as a means of excluding women and Indigenous philosophers see Waithe (2015, pp. 23–24). 21  O’Neill (2007, p. 36) makes this point regarding gender as a philosophical topic: “[…] issues concerning gender have, since the time of Kant, been viewed as external to philosophy proper; they are of “anthropological” interest, matters of the social sciences that are beyond the purview of philosophy proper. But feminist historians of philosophy, with our acceptance of gender issues as constituting an important set of philosophical concerns, and with our openness to exploring different styles and genres of philosophy, are in an excellent position to excavate many of the women’s 18

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ancient women to be philosophers seems to stem from a failure to find in their writings an engagement with topics traditionally considered philosophical. But if our contemporary philosophical interests are themselves sexist, then this will lead to bias when we look backwards. It may be that some of the work of expanding the ancient philosophical canon first requires making contemporary philosophy more receptive and less sexist. Waithe (1987, p. xii) admits that changing the definition of philosophy is beyond the scope of her earlier work, but ultimately it may well be necessary for the recovery of women’s thought. For instance, reflections on child-rearing and domestic affairs, such as we find in the Pythagorean Letters, may more readily be read as philosophical if we come to an appreciation of the constraints within which some ancient women philosophers were working. We might better appreciate the domains they had access to, and the importance of these matters to members of particular schools, like the Pythagoreans. Bonelli suggests that the content of some of the Letters might be understood as examples of applied ethics (Sect. 1.4). This is a way of elevating their content and resisting the urge to dismiss it as non-philosophical. On the other hand, this is tricky territory. Scholars working in the feminist history of philosophy have urged caution around being too quick to designate a “women’s way” of doing philosophy.22 One reason to resist this move is that it risks suggesting that women are not participants in mainstream debates for reasons other than lack of access or bias around what counts as mainstream. Sarah Hutton (2019) has argued convincingly for an approach to the history of philosophy which we might call contextualist. In this approach, we consider the details of the context in which a philosopher lived and worked, as well as details of their biography, as crucial to understanding the mode and content of their arguments.23 This approach yields a superior understanding of any historic philosopher’s thought. It is especially critical for reaching the thought of women, since it exposes and explains why they might have had different concerns, different ways of thinking through them, and different modes of expression than we have come to expect from exposure to a male-dominated canon. The contextualist approach helps us avoid anachronism and avoid an essentialist perspective on ancient philosophy, in which what counts as philosophical is guided by our own concerns, or those deemed worthwhile out of context.24 Hutton argues that our thinking about the question of whether there is something distinctive about ancient women’s philosophy is advanced by this approach: To get where we are today in the study of female philosophers of the past we have had a lot to learn—to take a wider view of the genres in which past philosophers philosophized; to understand the vocabularies they adopted; to recognize that letters can be a philosophical source; to acknowledge the importance of religion in philosophy’s history; to understand that philosophers of the past had different priorities and concerns from our own; to work out

long-forgotten texts, and to demonstrate the philosophical contributions that they make. The work will be hard, but the payoffs just may change the shape of our picture of western philosophy.” 22  On which see e.g. Hutton (2019, p. 693). 23  Hutton (2019), especially p. 694. 24  On which see Waithe (2015, pp. 29–30) on “burning issue” bias.

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K. R. O’Reilly the issues which they considered important; to pay attention to what they as philosophers intended, insofar as we can discern it […] Importantly, by reconstructing the context in which women philosophized, and by attempting to address their philosophy in its own terms, we have a better chance of understanding their arguments and analysing them, without sacrificing the “otherness” of past philosophy. Furthermore, by addressing women’s philosophy in its own terms, we shall stand a better chance of determining whether there were problems and solutions particular to women. (Hutton 2019, p. 691, emphasis in the original)

Hutton specialises in early modern thought, and her examples of women thinkers are most often from that period. I submit that something like this approach is appropriate to women in classical Greece as well. To approach ancient philosophy and its women protagonists on their terms, and with an openness to differences of genre, language and concern will stretch the boundaries of ancient philosophy as we know it. I suggest this is no bad thing. If doing so allows us to reflect on the reality of philosophy as it was practiced at the time, and by this important group within it, it is crucial that the discipline as we define it should shift to accommodate those findings.25

2.5  Conclusion Bonelli has made significant contributions to the on-going work of restoring to philosophy its ancient women thinkers. She has made good on the promise of the title of her paper by furthering our thinking on open questions which need both more reflection by members of the discipline, and more exposure to them. She has reported some of the significant results generated by the research conducted so far, and given us some indication of the auspicious direction that current research is taking. This involves showing us the history of treatments of ancient women, and something of their reception, alongside a detailed discussion of the criteria used by scholars to determine which figures to include, and her own recommendations on this. Though I have argued that more thinking is needed about how to shape these criteria, Bonelli’s proposals are a welcome addition to that discussion. There is a sense that interest in ancient women philosophers is picking up pace, with promising results. In defending efforts to revalorise ancient women philosophers and encouraging our reflection on the methods we use to access them, Bonelli’s insights

 Rée (2002, pp. 651–652) extends this point, relating it not just to our discipline’s past but its future: “If a canon functions, in the first place, to give a present identity to an intellectual discipline by defining the past of which it takes itself to be the inheritor, it also serves, secondly, to shape its sense of its intellectual options for the future, and hence to determine the kinds of works that get written, and indeed the kinds of thoughts that get thought. But in the third place, changes in forms of canonicity can have retroactive effects, entailing wholesale changes in conventional interpretations, alterations in traditional rankings, and even the deletion of whole ranges of works that were previously well-regarded […] it will require a reconfiguration of philosophical inquiry itself and a systematic reworking of its relations to its future and its past.”

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form part of that forward movement. These are substantial contributions, and I hope that the thinking of many scholars of ancient philosophy will be aided by reading her paper, as mine has been. Acknowledgments  My thanks to the Footnotes Writing Circle for helpful discussion of a draft of this paper. This paper is dedicated to Rachel Prideaux.

References Adamson, P. (2014). Classical philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps, volume 1. Oxford University Press. Adamson, P. (2015). Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman world: A history of philosophy without any gaps, volume 2. Oxford University Press. Alanen, L., & Witt, C. (Eds.). (2004). Feminist reflections on the history of philosophy. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Bonelli, M. (2021). Women philosophers in antiquity: Open questions and some results. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Buffet, M. (1668). Nouvelles observations sur la langue française, avec l’éloge des illustres savantes tant anciennes que modernes. Jean Cusson. Clark, G. (1988). Review of the book A history of women philosophers, vol. 1: Ancient women philosophers 600 B.C.–A.D. 500, by M. E. Waithe (Ed.). The Classical Review, 38(2), 429–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X00122620 Dancy, R. M. (1989). On a history of women philosophers, vol. I [Review of the book A history of women philosophers, vol. 1: Ancient women philosophers 600 B.C.–A.D. 500, by M. E. Waithe (Ed.)]. Hypatia, 4(1), 160–171. Davies, R. (2020). Donne guardiane? Un ragionamento dirottato. In M. Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp.  3–15). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Deslauriers, M. (2012). Women, education, and philosophy. In S. L. James & S. Dillon (Eds.), A companion to women in the ancient world (pp. 343–353). Wiley-Blackwell. Forge, Jean de la (1663). Le cercle de femmes sçavantes. Chez Jean-Baptiste Loyson. Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a way of life. Blackwell. Hawley, R. (1994). The problem of women philosophers in ancient Greece. In L.  J. Archer, S. Fischler, & M. Wyke (Eds.), Women in ancient societies (pp. 70–87). Macmillan. Hutton, S. (2019). Women, philosophy and the history of philosophy. The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 27(4), 684–701. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2018.1563766 Ménage, G. (1690). Historia mulierum philosopharum. Apud Anissonios Joan. Posuel & Claudium Rigaud. O’Neill, E. (2007). Justifying the inclusion of women in our histories of philosophy: The case of Marie de Gournay. In L. M. Alcoff & E. F. Kittay (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to feminist philosophy (pp. 17–42). Blackwell. Pellò, C. (2020). “Non solo uomini, ma anche donne…”. La presenza femminile nella filosofia greca: Il caso delle pitagoriche. In M.  Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp. 55–78). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. Rée, J. (2002). Women philosophers and the canon. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 10(4), 641–652. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2002.10383083 Salomoni, S. (2020). Pompeia Plotina: l’imperatrice filosofa. In M.  Bonelli (Ed.), Filosofe, maestre, imperatrici. Per un nuovo canone della storia della filosofia antica (pp. 131–161). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.

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Snyder, J. M. (1989). Women philosophers of the Hellenistic and Roman world. In J. M. Snyder, The woman and the lyre: Women writers in classical Greece and Rome (pp. 99–121). Southern Illinois University Press. Waithe, M. E. (Ed.). (1987). A history of women philosophers, volume I: Ancient women philosophers, 600 B.C.–500 A.D. Martinus Nijhoff. Waithe, M. E. (2015). From canon fodder to canon formation: How do we get there from here? The Monist, 98(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onu004 Witt, C. (2006). Feminist interpretations of the philosophical canon. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 31, 537–552. Katharine R.  O’Reilly is assistant professor of ancient philosophy at Ryerson University in Toronto. She was previously lecturer in ancient philosophy in the Departments of Philosophy and Classics at King’s College London (2019–21). Katharine studied ancient philosophy at the University of Toronto, King’s College London, and the University of Oxford (DPhil, 2019). She is a specialist in Ancient Greek & Roman Philosophy, particularly ancient moral psychology. Her work is focused on prudentialism, memory, anticipation, pain and pleasure, especially as conceived of by Plato, Aristotle and the Hellenistic schools. She recently published “The Jellyfish’s Pleasures in Philebus 20b–21d” in Phronesis, 64(3), and “Cicero Reading the Cyrenaics on the Anticipation of Future Harms” in Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(2). She is currently co-editing a volume, with Caterina Pellò, on Ancient Women Philosophers (Cambridge University Press). From 2020–24 she sits on the Management Committee of the British Society for the History of Philosophy. Her academic website is katharineoreilly.com.  

Part II

The Riddles of Cleobulina of Rhodes

Chapter 3

Cleobulina of Rhodes and the Philosophical Power of Riddles Mariana Gardella Hueso

Abstract  The aim of this paper is to examine the riddles composed by Cleobulina of Rhodes, who was one of the first known Greek intellectual women and a renowned riddle composer. I intend to argue that her riddles offer a perspective on knowledge that is relevant for the history of ancient thought. Indeed, Cleobulina’s riddles refer to well-known items through descriptions of seemingly odd or unlikely situations which conceal the solution of the riddle and make it hard to guess. Given that these items are part of everyday life, the process of guessing the answer to the enigma shows that we do not truly know what we thought we knew. This experience helps to reveal the limits and instability of human knowledge and lead us to acquire a different understanding about items already known. Keywords  Cleobulina of Rhodes · Riddle · Metaphor · Knowledge · Ignorance

3.1  Introduction On Socrates’ last day in prison, his wife Xanthippe accompanied him, their young son in her arms. When she saw her husband’s dearest pupils enter, she cried that this could be the last time they see each other (Plato, Phaedo 60a). Her words seemed to upset Socrates because he immediately asked Crito that someone take her home.1 After Xanthippe was sent out, the philosophical conversation on the immortality of the soul began. 1  In ancient sources, Xanthippe’s harshness is presented as an exercise to train Socrates’ character. On Xanthippe, see Xenophon, Symposium 2.10–11; Memorabilia 2.2.7–11; Plutarch, De capienda ex inimicis utilitate 8.90e; De cohibenda ira 13.461d; Vita Catonis 20.3.347f; Diogenes Laertius 2.36–37; Seneca, De Constantia Sapientis 18.5. See also the remarks made by Stavru (2018, pp. 648–655).

M. Gardella Hueso (*) Institute of Philosophy, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_3

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Xanthippe’s departure can be seen as symbolic of the place reserved for women at the beginning of Western philosophy—apparently, no place at all. Indeed, the first philosophers were men, and some assumed explicitly or implicitly that they were not only different, but also superior to women, who saw themselves largely confined to getting married, having children, and taking care of household tasks.2 Nevertheless, from at least the sixth century BCE onwards, there were women who were dedicated to intellectual activity, among whom we find Theano and other Pythagorean women, Cleobulina, Themistoclea, Chilonis, Aspasia, Diotima, Arete, Nicarete, Lasthenia, Axiothea, Hipparchia, Themista, Pamphile, Asclepigenia, and Hypatia.3 Although most of these intellectual women can be considered sages or philosophers, they are often neglected, overlooked, or deliberately excluded from the standard philosophical canon. One way to rethink and rewrite the history of Western philosophy without leaving out any of its protagonists is to study these female thinkers and to highlight the philosophical value of their work. To that end, in this paper I will examine one of the first Greek intellectual women: Cleobulina of Rhodes, who was a renowned riddle composer. I will argue that her riddles offer a perspective on knowledge that is relevant to the history of ancient thought. In the first section, I will share some biographical details that help contextualize Cleobulina’s work. In the second section, after presenting a brief introduction to the Greek riddle tradition, I will analyze her riddles. Finally, I will conclude with some reflections about the philosophical value of Cleobulina’s riddles.

3.2  Who Was Cleobulina? Philologists from the nineteenth century claimed that Cleobulina was no more than a fictional character. Crusius maintains that she was created by Plutarch in his Septem Sapientium Convivium, and according to Wilamowitz she was a comic character from Cratinus’ Cleobulinas (Κλεοβουλῖναι) used later in another comic play, Alexis’ Cleobulina (Κλεοβυλίνη).4 These judgments have shaped our modern-day

2  Lovibond (2000, pp. 10–11). See also Waithe (1987, pp. xii–xiii). In some philosophical sources, women are presented as inferior to men. See, for example, Xenophon, Symposium 2.9.12; Oeconomicus 7.10–14; Aristotle, Methaphysics 1.5, 986a; Politics 1.12, 1259a–1260b. For an overview of the role and status of women in Greek antiquity, see the classical studies of Pomeroy (1976), Mossé (1983), and Cantarella (1987). 3  A wide index of women philosophers from ancient to contemporary times can be found in Warren (2009, pp.  525–530). On the intellectual women from ancient Greece, see also Wider (1986), Waithe (1987), Hawley (1994), and Pietra (1997). On the question of the historical existence of Diotima, see Waithe (1987, pp. 92–108). 4  See Crusius (1896) and Wilamowitz (1899). According to Bianchi (2017, pp. 20–22), Cratinus’ Cleobulinas was performed between 435 and 420 (KA, frs. 92–101). The plural of the name in the title of the play suggests that the chorus might have been made up of riddling-women. We do not know anything about Alexis’ Cleobulina except that Sinope, a prostitute, was mentioned in the play (KA, fr. 109).

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image of Cleobulina and explain why some scholars still consider her a “probably fictional” woman.5 Nevertheless, her existence is attested to in many sources, and the use of Cleobulina as a literary character rather reflects the interest that she galvanized. It seems that her outstanding intellectual work and her prominent social position made her both a figure of admiration for writers such as Plutarch, and a target for the taunts of comic poets such as Cratinus and Alexis. According to Diogenes Laertius, Cleobulus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Sages, had a daughter who composed riddles in hexameters (Diogenes Laertius, 1.89).6 He believed that in order to prepare for a proper marriage, girls needed an education as much as boys did. Accordingly, Cleobulina was given access to an education (Diogenes Laertius, 1.91). Eusebius of Caesarea says that she was especially renowned during the eighty-second Olympiad (452–449 BCE), along with Crates, Telesilla, Bacchylides, and Praxilla, poets whose existence is not questioned (Jerome, Chronicle 112; George Synkellos, Extract of Chronography 470). But since Cleobulina and her father lived during the sixth century BCE, this is likely the date when her riddles became known in Athens thanks to the performance of Cratinus’ play, rather than the date of her floruit (Matelli 1997, pp. 35–36). Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria name her among prominent historical women such as Sappho, Theano, Aspasia, Corinna, Myia, Gorgo, and Timocleia (Plutarch, Conjugalia Praecepta 145e; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4.19.122–123). Although she was called Cleobulina after her father, Plutarch claimed her real name was Eumetis (De Pyth. Or. 401a–b; Conv. Sept. Sap. 150b). This name expresses not only the cleverness and skill (δεινότητα καὶ σοφίαν) that she showed in composing her riddles, but also her admirable thinking, political mind, and philanthropic character (ἀλλὰ καὶ φρόνημα θαυμαστὸν καὶ νοῦς ἔνεστι πολιτικὸς καὶ φιλάνθρωπον ἦθος), qualities by which she influenced her father and made him a mild and popular ruler (Plutarch, Conv. Sept. Sap. 148d–e). The name Eumetis is linked with the mythological figure of Metis, Zeus’ first wife. Metis was the paradigm of cunning and had the reputation of being “the wisest among gods and humans (πλεῖστα θεῶν εἰδυῖαν ἰδὲ θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων)” (Hesiod, Theogony 887). To help her husband become the ruler of Olympus, she prepared a potion to make his father Cronus vomit out Zeus’ siblings; reunited with their younger brother, they successfully fought to overthrow their father and the other Titans (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.2.1). This is why the word μῆτις is used to describe a complex type of intelligence that combines wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception, and resourcefulness.7 Thanks to her μῆτις, Cleobulina was capable not only of composing riddles by weaving together ambiguous and opposite concepts, but also of  Bowie (2006). See also Buffière (1970, p. 82), who treats Cleobulina as “the personification of the riddle.” 6  In the same passage, Diogenes Laertius says that Cleobulus was the author of songs and riddles written in three thousand verses (ᾄσματα καὶ γρίφους εἰς ἔπη τρισχίλια). See also Suda, s.v. Κλεοβουλίνη, Κλεόβουλος. 7  On the meaning of μῆτις and the connection between Cleobulina and the mythological figure of Metis, see Detienne & Vernant (1974, pp. 9–10 and 61–74). 5

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finding answers that give a single meaning to those enigmatic and polysemous statements (Detienne & Vernant 1974, p. 290). Cleobulina was known as a riddle composer. So far as we know, she was the first woman who dedicated herself to composing riddles. Unfortunately, only four of her riddles have reached us: the cup riddle, the riddle found in the Dissoi Logoi, the Phrygian flute riddle, and the year riddle.8 We do not know whether Cleobulina composed her riddles in writing or orally. Athenaeus tells us that “in her riddles (ἐν τοῖς αἰνίγμασιν)” she proposed a definition of riddle itself and that Diotimus of Olympene, an author completely unknown to us, discussed it at length (Athenaeus, 10.448b). The expression ἐν τοῖς αἰνίγμασιν and the possibility of this discussion provide evidence that there may have been a riddle book written either by Cleobulina or by someone who collected her riddles and published them in a book under her name (Kwapisz 2013, pp. 151–152).

3.3  Cleobulina’s Riddles Before analyzing Cleobulina’s riddles, it is necessary to briefly introduce the ancient Greek riddle tradition.9 Riddles (αἴνιγμα or γρῖφος) had a strong presence in the cultural milieu of ancient Greece, especially at the symposia, where it was typical for guests to participate in riddle contests after dinner.10 The ability to solve a riddle was seen as proof of one’s cleverness. Those who answered correctly earned the recognition of their peers and were rewarded with congratulations, kisses, and garlands (Athenaeus, 10.457c–f; 10.458f–459b).11 Those who were unsuccessful suffered humiliation for their ignorance and were forced to pay a penalty, such as drinking a cup of unmixed wine or brine without breathing. Sometimes the consequences of failing to solve a riddle were much more dramatic. For example, Homer is said to have died because, despite being considered one of the wisest of all Greeks, he could not guess the riddle that some boys killing lice posed: “What we see and catch we leave behind; what we neither see nor catch we carry away” (Hippolytus,

8  Three of the four riddles by Cleobulina (the cup riddle, the Phrygian flute riddle, and the riddle in the Dissoi Logoi) are found in the editions of Bergk (1866, pp. 440–441), Diehl (1949, pp. 130–131), and West (1992, pp. 50–51). The riddle of the year is also attributed to Cleobulus. In his edition, Edmonds (1931, pp. 161–165) includes not only Cleobulina’s riddles, but also some testimonies revealing how she was known in antiquity. Matelli (1997) gathers the widest collection of fragments and testimonies of Cleobulina. 9  For an overview of the ancient Greek riddle tradition, see the classical works of Schultz (1909–1912) and Ohlert (1912), and also Pucci (1996), Colli (2005, pp. 340–369 and 435–440), Berra (2008), and Beta (2016). 10  On riddles at the symposia, see Della Bona (2013, pp. 172–180) and Potamiti (2015, pp. 135–151). 11  See also Pollux (6.107); Hesychius, s.v. γρῖφος. On prizes and punishments at the symposium, see Potamiti (2015, pp. 147–148).

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Refutatio Omnium Haeresium 9.9.5).12 The kingdom of Lydia was destroyed because the king Croesus misunderstood the enigmatic response given by the Pythia at Delphi when he asked whether he should send an army against the Persians or not.13 The oracle replied that “if he marched against the Persians, he would destroy a great kingdom” (Herodotus, 1.53 = PW, fr. 53).14 Croesus did not realize that the great kingdom was his own. As we can see from these examples, riddles bring our ignorance to light. This special feature of riddles is analyzed in a scholion on Lucian’s Vitarum Auctio: The difference between γρῖφος and αἴνιγμα is that in the αἴνιγμα one is aware of being ignorant whereas in the γρῖφος one is ignorant but thinks one understands. So, for example, an αἴνιγμα is: “What has two legs? What has three legs? What has four legs?” Hence the question is clear. A γρῖφος is: “Hector, the son of Priam, was killed by the man Diomedes.” Here, one thinks to know what is said, however, one does not realize that “the man Diomedes” [i.e. “Diomede’s man”] is Achilles. For he got her [i.e. Diomede] after Briseis. (Schol. Lucian, Vitarum Auctio 14)15

The author of the scholion marks a difference between the two most common terms used to refer to riddles: αἴνιγμα and γρῖφος.16 The example provided to illustrate the distinctive characteristic of αἰνίγματα is the riddle posed by the monstrous Sphinx.17 This difficult riddle poses a mysterious question that explicitly demands an answer. Listeners immediately recognize that they do not know the solution. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, it is said that only Oedipus was able to correctly answer the riddle. As a result, he became the ruler of Thebes and married Jocasta, the

12  ὅσα εἴδομεν καὶ ἐλάβομεν, ταῦτα ἀπολείπομεν, ὅσα δὲ οὔτε εἴδομεν οὔτ’ ἐλάβομεν, ταῦτα φέρομεν. The translation is taken from Kahn (1979/2001). On Homer’s death and the riddle that caused it, see Levine (2003). 13  Some oracular responses (mythical and historical) have an enigmatic tone and use the same standard techniques of riddles, like metaphors, paradoxes, and ambiguous words, in order to conceal their meaning and force the recipient to guess the answer. On this subject, see Fontenrose (1978, pp. 79–83), Dougherty (1993, pp. 45–60), Johnston (2008, pp. 51–56), and Naerebout & Beerden (2013, pp. 125–142). 14  ἢν στρατεύηται ἐπὶ Πέρσας, μεγάλην ἀρχήν μιν καταλύσειν. The translation is taken from Fontenrose (1978). See also Herodotus, 1.69, 91; Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.5, 1407a39. 15  διαφέρει γρῖφος καὶ αἴνιγμα, ὅτι τὸ μὲν αἴνιγμα ὁμολογεῖ τις ἀγνοεῖν, τὸν δὲ γρῖφον ἀγνοεῖ δοκῶν ἐπίστασθαι. οἷον αἴνιγμα μέν ἐστι τὸ “τί δίπουν; τί τρίπουν; τί τετράπουν;” ἐνταῦθα δὲ δῆλον τὸ ἐρώτημα. γρῖφος δὲ οἷον “Ἕκτορα τὸν Πριάμου Διομήδης ἔκτανεν ἀνήρ·” ἐνταῦθα δοκεῖ μὲν εἰδέναι τὸ ῥηθέν, ἀγνοεῖ δέ, ὅτι Διομήδης ἦν ἀνὴρ Ἀχιλλεύς· ἐκείνην γὰρ ἔσχε μετὰ τὴν Βρισηίδα. The translation is taken from Luz (2013, p. 97). 16  The other source where αἴνιγμα and γρῖφος are explicitly differentiated is Pollux (6.107), τὸ μὲν αἴνιγμα παιδιὰν εἶχεν, ὁ δὲ γρῖφος καὶ σπουδήν. Despite this distinction, Luz (2013, pp. 97–98) argues that it is probable that both terms were used interchangeably. However, Konstantakos (2004, p. 120) defends that αἴνιγμα and γρῖφος are not synonyms because αἴνιγμα refers to riddle in the narrow sense, whereas γρῖφος is a wider term that covers not only riddles, but also other intellectual games like charades and games based on wordplay. On this possible distinction, see also Buffière (1970, pp. 45–49). A detailed study of these two terms is found in Berra (2008). 17  For other versions of the same riddle, see Apollodorus (3.5.8), Athenaeus (10.456b), and the Greek Anthology (14.64).

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­ idowed queen and his mother, with whom he had four children.18 The example of w γρῖφος given in the scholion is a statement with a hidden meaning: Διομήδης ἀνήρ is an ambiguous expression that can refer either to Diomedes, who did not kill Hector, or to Diomeda’s partner, Achilles, who killed the son of Priamus.19 If we do not grasp the double meaning of the expression Διομήδης ἀνήρ, we might conclude that the sentence “Hector was killed by the man Diomedes” is false because Diomedes did not kill Hector, when in fact Διομήδης ἀνήρ also refers to Achilles, Hector’s murderer. The first definition of “riddle” was given by Aristotle in chapter 22 of the Poetics, within his study of poetic diction (λέξις) and in close connection with metaphor: “It is the form of a riddle to use impossible combinations [of names] in saying things that really exist” (Aristotle, Poetics 22, 1458a26–27).20 This definition is based on an opposition between ὑπάρχοντα and ἀδύνατα. The term ὑπάρχοντα—which can be translated as “things that really exist”—refers to the solutions concealed by riddle composers. As we will see from the examples quoted below, these answers are familiar items: objects, characters, or experiences that are part of everyday life. Riddles allude to these things through combinations (συνάψαι) of words describing ἀδύνατα. Unlike the ὑπάρχοντα, the ἀδύνατα are strange things, characters that seem not to exist, or situations that are odd, implausible, or even impossible (Konstantakos 2004, p. 120).21 The descriptions of ἀδύνατα usually contain many metaphors.22 Aristotle accordingly posits that riddles are the result of excessive use of metaphors, an excess that makes speech opaque and enigmatic.23 In his work On Riddles (Περὶ γρίφων), the Peripatetic philosopher Clearchus of Soli gives an alternative definition of “riddle (γρῖφος)”:  As Vernant (1990, p. 116) argues, although Oedipus guessed the answer to the Sphinx’s question, he could not solve a deeper riddle: the one concerning his own identity, whose answer he discovered when he realized that he himself was the opposite of who he thought he was. 19  Διομήδης can be the nominative of the male name or the genitive of the female name. 20  αἰνίγματός τε γὰρ ἰδέα αὕτη ἐστί, τὸ λέγοντα ὑπάρχοντα ἀδύνατα συνάψαι. Translations of the Poetics are taken from Janko (1987). Here I slightly modify the translation. 21  On the notion of ἀδύνατον, see also Rowe (1965). 22  According to Aristotle, “a metaphor is the application [to something] of a name belonging to something else, either from the genus to the species, or from the species to the genus, or from a species to [another] species, or according to analogy (μεταφορὰ δέ ἐστιν ὀνόματος ἀλλοτρίου ἐπιφορά ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ γένους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ τὸ γένος ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ εἴδους ἐπὶ εἶδος ἢ κατὰ τὸ ἀνάλογον)” (Poetics 21, 1457b6–9). Aristotle’s theory of metaphor has been extensively discussed. See Ricoeur (1975, pp. 13–61), Most (1987), Laks (1994), and Kirby (1997). To develop this subject at length would exceed the main purpose of this paper. 23  Aristotle, Poetics 22, 1458a23–26: “If someone makes all [the names] of this sort [sc. unfamiliar names], [the result] will be either a riddle or a barbarism. If [the poem is composed] of metaphors, it will be a riddle; if of exotic [names], barbarism (ἀλλ’ ἄν τις ἅπαντα τοιαῦτα ποιήσῃ, ἢ αἴνιγμα ἔσται ἢ βαρβαρισμός· ἂν μὲν οὖν ἐκ μεταφορῶν, αἴνιγμα, ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ γλωττῶν, βαρβαρισμός).” Janko’s translation slightly modified. Βαρβαρισμός is the opposite of speaking Greek properly. It refers to the use of too many foreign words or too many Greek words incorrectly. See Rhetoric 3.5, 1407a19–b25. In the Sophistical Elenchi 3, 165b20–21, βαρβαρισμός is identified with σολοικισμός. 18

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Riddle is a playful problem which requires one to use a process of intellectual inquiry to discover what is being referred to, and which is articulated with an eye to a reward or a punishment. (Athenaeus, 10.448c = fr. 86 Wehrli)24

This definition focuses on the idea that riddles are thought-provoking problems. In fact, Clearchus states that “inquiry into riddles is not alien to philosophy, and the ancients used them to show off their education” (Athenaeus, 10.457c–d  =  fr. 63 Wehrli).25 But riddles are a special kind of problem—they are playful. Indeed, Clearchus describes them as questions asked during symposia, where riddle contests took place (Schol. in Aristophanes, Vespae 20 = fr. 85 Wehrli).26 Cleobulina’s four riddles fit the two definitions previously mentioned. On the one hand, they are presented as problems with a playful dimension. Plutarch compares them with knucklebones (ἀστραγάλοις) thrown mischievously (παίζουσα) at random people (Conv. Sept. Sap. 148d). On the other hand, they describe odd characters or situations (ἀδύνατα) that allude to familiar objects or experiences (ὑπάρχοντα), as made clear by Cleobulina’s most famous riddle, the cup riddle, which Aristotle quotes twice: I saw a man with fire welding bronze to a man. (Aristotle, Poetics 22, 1458a29–30)27

The answer to this riddle is cupping therapy.28 In ancient Greece, this therapy was used to restore balance in the four humours and recover good health (Hippocrates, On Ancient Medicine 22). Physicians would heat bronze cups and apply them to the body, where a small incision had been made, so that the heat would draw out blood.29 Following Aristotle’s definition, the riddle alludes to a familiar and well-known activity (cupping therapy) through the description of an improbable situation (a man welding bronze to another man). Two metaphors are at play in this description. First of all, the cups are designated by the material from which they are made, i.e.  γρῖφος πρόβλημά ἐστι ἐπιπαιστικόν, προστακτικὸν τοῦ διὰ ζητήσεως εὑρεῖν τῇ διανοίᾳ τὸ προβληθὲν τιμῆς ἢ ἐπιζημίου χάριν εἰρημένον. I follow the translation of Olson (2009), slightly modified. For an analysis of this definition, see Luz (2010, pp. 139–146). 25  τῶν γρίφων ἡ ζήτησις οὐκ ἀλλοτρία φιλοσοφίας ἐστί, καὶ οἱ παλαιοὶ τὴν τῆς παιδείας ἀπόδειξιν ἐν τούτοις ἐποιοῦντο. 26  γρῖφοι δὲ λέγεται τὰ ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοις προβαλλόμενα αἰνιγματώδη ζητήματα. 27  ἄνδρ’ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν ἐπ’ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα. See Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.2, 1405b1. The cup riddle is also quoted in Plutarch, Septem Sapientium Convivium 154b; Pseudo-Demetrios of Phaleron, On Style 102; Syrianus, Commentary on Hermogenes’ On types of style 36.12–14; John of Sicily, Commentary on Hermogenes’ On types of style 199.30–200.2. See also Greek Anthology 14.54. The translations of Cleobulina’s riddles are taken from Plant (2004), except for the translation of the riddle of the year, which is mine. 28   As we know from Aristotle, Rhetoric 3.2, 1405b3 and Plutarch, Septem Sapientium Convivium 154c. 29  In the treatise On riddles, Clearchus quotes a slightly different version of the cup riddle in the form of an elegiac distich. From this version, we know that, before applying the cups, the physicians used to make small incisions in the skin, in order to draw out the blood: “I saw a man with fire welding bronze to a man/so closely that he joined their blood together (ἄνδρ’ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν ἐπ’ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα/οὕτω συγκόλλως ὥστε σύναιμα ποιεῖν)” (Athenaeus, 10.452b10–11 = fr. 94 Wehrli). 24

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“bronze.” This metaphor applies the name of the genus to the species (Poetics 21, 1457b9–11). Second, the physician is said to be welding because, as Aristotle recognizes in the Rhetoric, there is no specific name for the medical practice of cupping. Since both the work of a physician who practices cupping therapy and that of a blacksmith who forges bronze belong to the same genus—insofar as they are both a kind of application (πρόσθεσις)—it is possible to apply metaphorically the name of the latter to the former and to call it “welding (κόλλησις)” (Rhetoric 3.2, 1405b2–3). This metaphor applies the name of one species to another belonging to the same genus (Poetics 21, 1457b13–16). Another of Cleobulina’s riddles is to be found in the anonymous treatise entitled Dissoi Logoi: I saw a man deceiving and stealing by force and this act of force was most rightly done. (Anonymous, Dissoi Logoi 3.11)30

In the third chapter of the Dissoi Logoi, the author presents two opposing theses concerning what is just and unjust: “Some say that what is just and what is unjust are two different things, others that the same thing is just and unjust” (Dissoi Logoi 3.1).31 The first thesis is called the “difference thesis” because it clearly distinguishes two opposing properties or predicates (just and unjust) (Robinson 1979, pp.  73–77). The second thesis is called the “identity thesis,” since its detractors claim that it leads to the identification of opposite properties. They argue that, if an action is to be considered just or unjust according to circumstances, one must recognize that the action is both just and unjust in absolute terms. For example, if it is just to lie and to deceive one’s parents, the same actions will also be unjust “since they [those who support the identity thesis] have recognized that the same thing is both unjust and just” (Dissoi Logoi 3.13).32 However, as scholars have noted, the objection against the identity thesis is fallacious (Robinson 1979, p.  150).33 The defenders of the identity thesis do not establish the identity of opposite properties, but the necessity of judging the morality of actions according to circumstances. They are contextualists34 who argue that it is impossible to establish abstract moral norms that apply to everyone in any circumstance, since what is right or wrong  ἄνδρ’ εἶδον κλέπτοντα καὶ ἐξαπατῶντα βιαίως, / καὶ τὸ βίᾳ ῥέξαι τοῦτο δικαιότατον.  καὶ τοὶ μὲν ἄλλο ἦμεν τὸ δίκαιον, ἄλλο δὲ τὸ ἄδικον· τοὶ δὲ τωὐτὸ δίκαιον καὶ ἄδικον. The translation is taken from Robinson (1979). On the date, author and goal of the Dissoi Logoi, see Robinson (1979, pp. 41–54). 32  τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ ἄδικον καὶ δίκαιον ὁμολογέοντι ἦμεν. 33  Specifically, the critics of the “identity thesis” commit the fallacy a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. 34  I prefer not to talk about “relativism” because of the ambiguity of this concept, which is used for a wide variety of positions. Instead, following Robinson (1979, p. 150), I use the concept of “contextualism.” Contextualism is a form of relationalism, the position according to which X is always “X with respect to.” In the field of ethics, this implies that “moral judgments, awards of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, etc., are embedded in specific cultural, historical or conceptual backgrounds, and that their authority is restricted and relative to their context” (Baghramian 2004, p. 207). 30 31

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c­annot be judged in abstracto, but has to be judged according to the moment (καιρός) when one decides and acts.35 For example, although it is usually wrong to lie or steal, there are occasions when lying or stealing are considered morally acceptable: it is right to deceive one’s parents by hiding a medicine in their drink if they have to take it and refuse to do so; it is also right to steal a friend’s weapon if she wants to hurt herself with it (Dissoi Logoi 3.2–4). The author of the Dissoi Logoi introduces Cleobulina’s riddle as an example of the contextualist position. Her riddle portrays a man who, in order to achieve noble goals, must conduct himself in a way usually considered unjust. Like the bleeding-­ cup riddle, the riddle found in the Dissoi Logoi also begins with the expression ἄνδρ’ εἶδον (“I saw a man”), which may be characteristic of Cleobulina’s writing style. However, in this case, no ancient source offers the solution to the riddle. Bergk (1866, p.  62) relates the riddle to a scholion on the Nichomachean Ethics (5.6, 1134a; fr. 128a Rose) which says that one who steals the sword of a madman is not a thief, but a savior.36 Thus, the answer to the riddle would be “a man who stole the weapon of a madman,” a case also mentioned in Dissoi Logoi 3.3–4. Matelli (1997, pp.  19–21) suggests identifying the man with a soldier, since the riddle expresses the warlike mentality of the archaic age to which Cleobulina belonged. As shown in Dissoi Logoi 3.5–8, during wartime, a soldier can commit unjust actions for a fair cause, like defending himself or his city. However, it should be noted that Cleobulina’s riddle is quoted after a reference to painters and tragedians. The author of the Dissoi Logoi claims that, regarding painting and the writing of tragedies, “the best person is the one who deceives the most in creating things that are like the real thing” (Dissoi Logoi 3.10).37 This has led Untersteiner (1954, pp. 167–168, n. 11) to suggest—correctly, I think—that the answer to the riddle is the artist who deceives by creating depictions resembling the real world. Indeed, the riddle is quoted before some verses of Aeschylus in which the poet defends the notion of “just deception”: “God does not stand aloof from just deception” and “There are occasions when God respects an opportune moment for lies” (Dissoi Logoi 3.12; frs. 301–302 Nauck).38 Painting and composing tragedies may be examples of such occasions. The third riddle of Cleobulina is passed on by Plutarch: A dead donkey struck my ears with the bones of his shins. (Plut., Conv. Sept. Sap. 150f)39

 The concept of καιρός appears also in Dissoi Logoi 2.19. Here this notion has a broad meaning and refers to the moment when it is necessary to act, not precisely to the moment when it is necessary to speak. See Trédé (1992, pp. 247–294). 36  ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐδὲ κλέπτης ὁ τοῦ μαινομένου κλέπτων τὸ ξίφος· σωτὴρ δέ. 37  ὅστις πλεῖστα ἐξαπατῇ ὅμοια τοῖς ἀληθινοῖς ποιέων, οὗτος ἄριστος. 38  ἀπάτης δικαίας οὐκ ἀποστατεῖ θεός and ψευδῶν δὲ καιρὸν ἔσθ’ ὅπου τιμῇ θεός. These verses were probably taken from the Philoctetes, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus in which Odysseus must deceive and lie for a just cause: to ensure Greek victory over the Trojans. See Gianvittorio (2015, pp. 22 and 24). 39  κνήμῃ νεκρὸς ὄνος με κερασφόρῳ οὖας ἔκρουσεν. On the complex reconstruction of the text of this riddle, see Fabbro (2008). 35

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The answer to this riddle is the Phrygian flute. Although the flutes were usually made with the bones of fawns, in Plutarch’s symposium Aesop says that the flute makers decided to replace them with donkey bones because their sound is better (Conv. Sept. Sap. 150e). This riddle belongs to a distinctive tradition of sympotic poetry which mystifies the materials and practices of the symposium, like the Simonidean riddle about snow used to cool wine (Athenaeus, 3.125c; Power 2007, p. 201; Kwapisz 2013, p. 152). Just like the cup riddle, the Phrygian flute riddle refers to an object (the Phrygian flute) by means of a metaphor that applies the name of the genus to the species. The Phrygian flute is called a “dead donkey” because it is made of donkeys’ shin bones. Cleobulina’s last known riddle is called “the riddle of the year”: One father and twelve sons that had thirty sons each. (Suda, s.v. Κλεοβουλίνη)40

This riddle uses a metaphor based on an analogy between the three generations of a family tree and different units of time: the grandfather represents the year, his sons the twelve months, and his grandsons the days of each month.41 Despite their differences, the main characteristic of Cleobulina’s four riddles is that, following Aristotle’s definition, they refer to objects, persons, or phenomena that are part of the everyday experience of ordinary people (a cup, someone who steals or deceives, the Phrygian flute, and the year) through descriptions of seemingly odd or unlikely situations (a man welding bronze to another man, a man who deceives or steals rightfully, a dead donkey striking our ears, or someone with more than thirty children), so that it appears as if they were pointing to something other than what they are actually describing. These descriptions usually contain one or more metaphors, specifically metaphors that apply the name of the genus to the species (cups are called “bronze” and the Phrygian flute “dead donkey”), metaphors that apply the name of one species to another belonging to the same genus (the medical practice of cupping is called “welding”), and metaphors based on an analogy (the three generations of a family tree are equated with the year, the months and the days). Since only a few of her riddles have reached us, it is impossible to know with certainty with what intention Cleobulina composed them. However, from the ancient sources we can at least know how they were seen and to what purpose they were quoted. As I have indicated above, Plutarch presents Cleobulina’s riddles as a kind of sympotic entertainment, whereas the anonymous author of the Dissoi Logoi uses them as a vehicle for philosophical reflection. Although we do not know if Cleobulina composed her riddles to reflect on ethical issues, at least one of them served this purpose. The same is true of a tale (λόγον) that, according to Plutarch, Cleobulina used to tell her brother. The tale says that the moon once asked her mother to weave her a custom garment. She answered that it was an impossible task: “How can I weave it to fit your measure? For now, I see you full and round, and at another time  εἷς ὁ πατήρ, παῖδες δὲ δυώδεκα, τῶν δὲ ἑκάστῳ παῖδες τριάκοντα.  A similar version of the same riddle is attributed to Cleobulus. See Diogenes Laertius, 1.90–91; Greek Anthology 14.101.

40 41

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crescent-shaped, and at still another but little more than half your full size” (Conv. Sept. Sap. 157a–b).42 In Plutarch’s symposium, Cleobulina’s father proposes a moral interpretation of the tale. According to him, the story illustrates that it is difficult to determine exactly what worthless men need because their needs depend on their constantly changing desires (Conv. Sept. Sap. 157b–c). Moreover, if Cleobulina composed her riddles as funny mental games, this does not mean they were restricted to having only a playful dimension. Indeed, riddles lead us to acquire a different understanding of things already known. To guess the answer, the listener or reader’s task is to decode the metaphors of the seemingly improbable or impossible descriptions used in riddles and find out what they actually allude to, which is usually something familiar, something they are already acquainted with. As Luz (2013, p. 93) states, “the point of the riddle is not to provide a solution which is as far-fetched and difficult to find as possible but to disguise a well-known object in such a way that its nature is hard to discover.”43 Through metaphors, Cleobulina’s riddles transform a usual and common item into something unknown and invite us to rediscover it from a different perspective by revealing its connections with other things or phenomena—the connection between the medical practice of cupping therapy and the work of a blacksmith, between the artist and someone who deceives and steals by force, between the Phrygian flute and donkey’s bones, and between the generations of a family tree and different units of time.

3.4  Conclusion Scholars have given Cleobulina different titles. Some of them see her as a poet or a rhetorician, given that Aristotle quotes her cup riddle twice, in the Poetics and the Rhetoric (Waithe 1987, pp.  206–207; Diehl 1949, pp.  130–131; West 1992, pp. 50–51). Others, instead, consider Cleobulina to be a philosopher. Ménage (1690, pp. 6–8) includes her among the sixty-five women philosophers listed in his Historia Mulierum Philosopharum.44, 45 Pietra (1997, pp. 81–82) and Cursaru (2013) argue that she was one of the first women philosophers because of the amphibologies that follow from her riddles. Despite these efforts to include Cleobulina in the history of ancient thought, her name is still absent from some of the current dictionaries and encyclopedias of philosophy, like that of Goulet (1994) and that of Craig (1998).46  The translation is taken from Babbitt (1962).  See also Hasan-Rokem & Shulman (1996, pp. 5–6), and Pucci (1996, pp. 9 and 20). Although this is a distinctive characteristic of all riddles, it is important to focus on those formulated by Cleobulina, since they are among the oldest examples of riddles. 44  See also Hawley (1994, p. 87, n. 58) and Warren (2009, p. 525). 45  On Ménage’s and Waithe’s lists of women philosophers, see also Bonelli’s article in this volume. [Eds.] 46  The absence of Cleobulina in these dictionaries and encyclopedias is not due to her being a woman, but to her being a “sage” and not a philosopher. 42 43

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Technically speaking, Cleobulina was not a philosopher because she died before the invention of the concept of “philosophy.”47 Like her father, she can be considered a “sage (σοφή),” as Plutarch explicitly calls her (Conv. Sept. Sap. 148d). However, while she is not strictly speaking a philosopher, her riddles have philosophical value and, as such, are relevant to the history of ancient philosophy. First, since Cleobulina’s riddles were prominent in the development of the ancient Greek riddle tradition, they help us to understand the first philosophical reflections on riddles which are credited to Aristotle and his disciple Clearchus; if they cited Cleobulina’s cup riddle as being an illustrative example of the definition of riddle, it is perhaps because it was considered a kind of paradigm of the genre. Second, although Cleobulina likely composed her riddles as amusing mental games whose purpose was to entertain, they were also used as a vehicle for philosophical reflection, such as the riddle quoted in the Dissoi Logoi which serves to explore the contextualist definition of justice. Finally, as a riddle composer, Cleobulina adopted a singular perspective on knowledge—a classical philosophical topic. This is why the practice of composing and solving riddles might be considered as a relevant subject in the discussions of ancient epistemological problems. This practice is grounded in an epistemic perspective according to which knowledge does not emerge from new findings, but from new connections between things already known. Like other ancient Greek riddles, Cleobulina’s indirectly refer to well-known items through seemingly odd or impossible descriptions which conceal the solution of the riddle and make it hard to guess. Given that these items are part of everyday life, the process of guessing the answer to the enigma makes us realize that we do not truly know what we thought we knew. This experience reveals the limits and instability of human knowledge. As Socrates will later enigmatically claim, to know means to be aware of our own ignorance.

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Hawley, R. (1994). The problem of women philosophers in ancient Greece. In L.  J. Archer, S. Fischler, & M. Wyke (Eds.), Women in ancient societies: An illusion of the night (pp. 70–87). Macmillan. Johnston, S. I. (2008). Ancient Greek divination. Blackwell. Kahn, C. (2001). The art and thought of Heraclitus. Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1979). Kirby, J. T. (1997). Aristotle on metaphor. The American Journal of Philology, 118, 517–554. Konstantakos, I. M. (2004). Trial by riddle: The testing of the counsellor and the contest of kings in the legend of Amasis and Bias. Classica et Mediaevalia, 55, 85–138. Kwapisz, J. (2013). Were there Hellenistic riddle books? In J. Kwapisz, D. Petrain, & M. Szymański (Eds.), The muse at play: Riddles and wordplay in Greek and Latin poetry (pp. 148–167). De Gruyter. Laks, A. (1994). Substitution et connaissance: Une interprétation unitaire (ou presque) de la théorie aristotélicienne de la métaphore. In D. Furley & A. Nehamas (Eds.), Aristotle’s rhetoric. Philosophical essays (pp. 283–305). Princeton University Press. Levine, D.  B. (2003). Poetic justice: Homer’s death in the ancient biographical tradition. The Classical Journal, 98(2), 141–160. Lovibond, S. (2000). Feminism in ancient philosophy. The feminist stake in Greek rationalism. In M.  Fricker & J.  Hornsby (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to feminism in philosophy (pp. 10–28). Cambridge University Press. Luz, C. (2010). Technopaignia. Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung. Brill. Luz, C. (2013). What has it got in its pocketses? Or, what makes a riddle a riddle? In J. Kwapisz, D.  Petrain, & M.  Szymański (Eds.), The muse at play: Riddles and wordplay in Greek and Latin poetry (pp. 83–99). De Gruyter. Matelli, E. (1997). Sulle tracce di Cleobuline. Aevum, 71, 11–61. Ménage, G. (1690). Historia mulierum philosopharum. Apud Anissonios, Joan. Posuel & Claudium Rigaud. Mossé, C. (1983). La femme dans la Grèce antique. Albin Michel. Most, G.  W. (1987). Seeming and being: Sign and metaphor in Aristotle. In M.  Amsler (Ed.), Creativity and the imagination. Case studies from the classical age to the twentieth century (pp. 11–33). University of Delaware Press. Naerebout, F., & Beerden, K. (2013). “Gods cannot tell lies”: Riddling and ancient Greek divination. In J. Kwapisz, D. Petrain, & M. Szymański (Eds.), The muse at play: Riddles and wordplay in Greek and Latin poetry (pp. 121–147). De Gruyter. Nightingale, A. W. (1995). Genres in dialogue. Plato and the construct of philosophy. Cambridge University Press. Ohlert, K. (1912). Rätsel und Gesellschaftsspiele der alten Griechen (2nd ed.). Mayer & Müller. Olson, S. D. (2009). Athenaeus (Vol. 5). Harvard University Press. Pietra, R. (1997). Les femmes philosophes de l’Antiquité gréco-romaine. L’Harmattan. Plant, I.  M. (2004). Women writers of ancient Greece and Rome. An anthology. University of Oklahoma Press. Pomeroy, S. (1976). Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. Schocken Books. Potamiti, A. (2015). γρίφους παίζειν: Playing at riddles in Greek. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 55, 133–153. Power, T. (2007). Ion of Chios and the politics of Polychordia. In V. Jennings & A. Katsaros (Eds.), The world of Ion of Chios (pp. 179–205). Brill. Pucci, P. (1996). Enigma, segreto, oracolo. Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali. Ricoeur, P. (1975). La métaphore vive. Seuil. Robinson, T. M. (1979). Contrasting arguments: An edition of the Dissoi Logoi. Arno Press. Rowe, G. O. (1965). The Adynaton as a stylistic device. The American Journal of Philology, 86(4), 387–396. Schultz, W. (1909–1912). Rätsel aus dem hellenischen Kulturkreise (Vols. 1–2). Hinrichs.

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Stavru, A. (2018). Aristoxenus on Socrates. In A.  Stavru & C.  Moore (Eds.), Socrates and the Socratic dialogue (pp. 623–664). Brill. Trédé, M. (1992). Kairos, l’à-propos et l’occasion. Le mot et la notion, d’Homère à la fin du IVe siècle avant J.-C. Les Belles Lettres. Untersteiner, M. (1954). Sofisti (Vol. 3). La Nuova Italia. Vernant, J.-P. (1990). Ambiguity and reversal: On the enigmatic structure of Oedipus Rex. In J.-P. Vernant & P. Vidal-Naquet (Eds.), Myth and tragedy in ancient Greece (J. Lloyd, Trans.) (pp. 113–140). Zone Books. Waithe, M. E. (Ed.). (1987). A history of women philosophers, Volume I: Ancient women philosophers, 600 B.C.–500 A.D. Martinus Nijhoff. Warren, K. J. (2009). An unconventional history of Western philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield. Wider, K. (1986). Women philosophers in the ancient Greek world: Donning the mantle. Hypatia, 1(1), 21–62. Wilamowitz, U. (1899). Lesefrüchte. Hermes, 34, 219–222. Mariana Gardella Hueso  is an assistant professor at the University of Buenos Aires and a junior researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Argentina). Her research focuses on ancient philosophy, including antilogic, eristic, and sophistic. She is currently researching about the ancient Greek riddle tradition. She is also interested in the history of ancient intellectuals who are women. Her recent publications include a translation of Cleobulina’s testimonies and riddles (2018).

Chapter 4

The Riddles of Cleobulina: A Response to Mariana Gardella Hueso’s “Cleobulina of Rhodes and the Philosophical Power of Riddles” Anna Potamiti

καὶ ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ τὸ ὅμοιον καὶ ἐν πολὺ διέχουσι θεωρεῖν εὐστόχου Arist., Rhet. 1412a12–13

Abstract  This paper is a response to Mariana Gardella Hueso “Cleobulina of Rhodes and the philosophical power of riddles.” I offer a close reading of the riddles associated directly or indirectly with Cleobulina with a view to highlight their generic characteristics, placing them in the wider context of international riddling traditions. Taking up and expanding on Gardella Hueso’s observations on the metaphorical nature of these riddles and the impossibilities expressed by them, I argue that, as opposed to riddles in general, Cleobulina was especially associated with one particular type of riddle: the type that folklorists call “the true riddle” and that Greek sources distinguish as ainigma. Rather than taking a biographical approach to Cleobulina, my discussion suggests the possibility of a female riddling tradition that enabled women to engage with various facets of reality and discover knowledge otherwise unavailable to them. A potentially powerful and unsettling mode of discourse, the ainigma was eventually marginalized as “nonsense” by predominating male modes of acquisition of knowledge and philosophical inquiry. Keywords  Cleobulina · Ainigma · True riddle · Female riddling · Nonsense · Genre criticism

A. Potamiti (*) Department of Philology, University of Patras, Rion, Greece e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_4

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4.1  Introduction Mariana Gardella Hueso’s paper is an earnest attempt to place a female philosophical voice at the beginning of philosophical thought. Given the predominantly male perspective of ancient sources, not least those pertaining to philosophy, this is not an easy task. Gardella Hueso’s undertaking is all the more difficult, as Cleobulina’s existence as a historical person has been much disputed. In addition, the medium with which Cleobulina is associated has been traditionally relegated to the sphere of playful pastimes, and therefore is not, as a rule, considered on a par with serious philosophical discourse. However, Gardella Hueso raises many interesting points regarding the value of riddles attributed to Cleobulina for the history of ancient thought, drawing attention to their cognitive value and possible epistemological links with philosophy. Indeed, her remarks on the nature of understanding that riddling affords the riddlees by guiding them to rediscover existing knowledge from a different perspective, through the association of different conceptual categories, are corroborated by Aristotle (Rhet. 1412a19–26). Good riddles (τὰ εὖ ᾐνιγμένα), Aristotle claims, like all smart sayings deriving from metaphor, teach the recipients something contrary to their expectation. Another issue that Gardella Hueso’s paper raises, albeit unintentionally, regards the merits of a biographical approach to ancient sources. The advantages of this type of criticism become more limited the further back we go in time, for obvious reasons. Especially in the case of Cleobulina, when the quest for a historical authority of a text or a genre is moot, a consideration of the text or genre, rather than the author, may prove more fruitful. I must state at this point that I am not in line with the idea of a historical Cleobulina. This outlook will be underlying my discussion, but as the subject has been extensively discussed it will not be expanded on here. Such a view does not undermine what I consider to be the most important thesis of Gardella Hueso’s paper: a female voice engaging in an alternative mode of discourse conducive to philosophical investigation; rather, it considers the subject from a broader perspective. In this paper I will offer a close reading of the riddles associated directly or indirectly with Cleobulina with a view to highlight their traditional, generic characteristics. Taking up and expanding on Gardella Hueso’s observations on the metaphorical nature of these riddles, I will argue that Cleobulina was especially associated with one particular type of riddle, the ainigma. Finally, I will investigate the implications of this association by focusing particularly on the riddling utterance (the “question”) and its inherent incongruities (another point noted by Gardella Hueso).

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4.2  The Obscene Riddle It has been assumed that Cratinus’ comedy Cleobulinai, where the name appears for the first time, featured the famous riddler engaged with her friends (the chorus?) in the very act of riddling, though the extant fragments (frs. 92–101 K-A) do not allow any secure inference as to the content of the play (Konstantakos 2005, p.  16).1 However, as two of the fragments (frs. 94 and 101 K-A) appear to be riddles, or parts of riddles (Konstantakos 2005, p. 16), the play is the earliest indication of the association of Cleobulina with riddles that becomes more explicit in later sources. The first one, fr. 94 K-A, is a hexameter that exhibits experience in epic phrasing: ἔστιν ἄκμων καὶ σφῦρα νεανίαι εὔτριχι πώλωι (a young colt with a beautiful mane has an anvil and a hammer).2 ἄκμονά τε σφῦράν τε (anvil and hammer) are mentioned at Od. 3.434 as trademarks of the coppersmith,3 while the phrase ἐΰτριχας […] ἵππους (horses with beautiful mane) occurs at Il. 23.13, 301 and 151. The idea of a young animal in possession of tools used by men contradicts common sense as it blurs the boundaries between the categories animal and human. The contradiction between the human tools and the animal create an empirical ambiguity, which starts to dissolve only when we turn to metaphorical thinking.4 πῶλος (foal) is a well-­ known poetic metaphor for young people, both female and, less often, male (LSJ s.v. πῶλος 3). The accompanying masculine adjective is an indication that here colt, rather than filly is to be understood; therefore the reference is to a young man. The “anvil and hammer” may be a reference to the male genitalia as words for tools are commonly used in comedy as metaphors for the erect penis, while words meaning to strike and the like are employed as metaphors for intercourse (Henderson 1991, pp. 44–45). With a twist that adds to the obscene imagery, the seemingly dignifying epic qualification “with a beautiful mane” is to be understood as referring to hairy buttocks, which, according to Henderson (1991, pp. 211–212 and 217), are a mark of aggressive male sexuality in comedy. This riddling verse then appears to be referring to the private parts of a virile young man.5 This is a metaphorical riddle that uses a series of metaphors to transfer imagery from familiar objects and animals to the human body. Such riddles where an

1  Matelli (1997, pp. 23–32) offers a detailed discussion of all the fragments. To my knowledge, the possibility that the chorus consisted of women representing riddles has not been considered; cf. the chorus in Callias’ Grammatike Theoria that consisted of women representing pairs of letters (Ath., 10.453d5, with Olson’s note (2009, p. 171, n. 249)). 2  For the scansion of ἄκμ- see Heph., 6.16–7.3, who cites the line. 3  Cf. Arist., GA 789b9–11. 4  On the types of ambiguity in riddles see Ben-Amos (1976, pp. 250–251). My awareness of the oppositions in riddles is informed by Georges and Dundes (1963). 5  Cf. the apparatus criticus to the fragment.

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innocent description has an obscene referent are not uncommon in many cultures, though the reverse is more frequent.6 The riddle may be an indication of the social function of riddling, which, in this case, allows women to engage with a subject which was otherwise out of bounds in ordinary female discourse as prescribed by the dominant ideology. However, given the biased perspective of our ancient sources in general, and the comic nature of the particular context of this riddle, we may surmise that it was intended as an expression of criticism of female riddling.7

4.3  The Snail Riddle The other preserved riddling utterance in Cleobulinai is fr. 101 K-A: φέροικος (house-bearer) is a kenning, referring here probably to the snail.8 The word carries epic overtones as it appears first in Hesiod (Op. 571) with reference to the snail. As with the previous riddle, the initial impression of the word is that it expresses an absurdity. There is a contradiction between the two elements of the compound word that effects a cultural ambiguity, as the idea of a movable household was not in accordance with the Greek ideology of the permanence of the oikos. The initial impression disappears once we realize that this is a metaphor that combines elements from the human and animal spheres. The theme of the house-bearer referring to a snail as well as other small animals is quite common in riddles worldwide.9

4.4  The Art Riddle The second literary appearance of Cleobulina, this time explicitly mentioned as the originator of an elegiac distich that has conventionally come to be considered a riddle, occurs by the end of the fifth century BCE in the Dissoi Logoi (3.11): ἄνδρ’ εἶδον κλέπτοντα καὶ ἐξαπατῶντα βιαίως, / καὶ τὸ βίαι ῥέξαι τοῦτο δικαιότατον (I saw a man cheating and deceiving involuntarily / and this involuntary act was most well balanced). Note that the author of the treatise cites Cleobulina’s verses as an instance of “the older poems” that corroborates his argument (ποιημάτων παλαιοτέρων μαρτύριον), 6  See, e.g., Davenport (1952, p. 266, nos. 7 and 9), Blacking (1961, p. 26, nos. 212–218), Simmons (1958, pp.  133–134, nos. 57–65), Crossley-Holland (2008, no. 62), and Akíntúndé (2015, pp. 86–87). 7  Cf. another instance of female riddling with an obscene solution in Diphilus fr. 49 K-A (= Ath., 10. 451b4–c6). 8  Cf. Philemon fr. 114 Kock. Trypho (Rhet. Gr. iii p. 195 Spengel) lists this type of riddle in his discussion of ainigma as a trope. 9  Cf. Symphosius 18, porto domum mecum; Taylor (1951, pp. 263–265 and 761–762).

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and not specifically as “a riddle.” However, the introductory phrase ἄνρ’ εἶδον (I saw a man), which is an old and widespread conventional mode of introduction to riddles (West 2007, pp. 366–367),10 and the impossibility of the content strongly point to a riddle. The paradox in this case is not conveyed by metaphor but chiefly by the semantic ambiguity of βίᾳ/βιαίως and δικαιότατον, which seemingly contradict one another. In discussions of the meaning of this riddle these words have been taken in their basic senses, as indicating, respectively, violence/force and justice, concepts that are traditionally conceived as opposites. κλέπτειν also is taken in its basic sense to steal. The result is that solutions revolve around ethical issues (Matelli 1997, pp. 17–23; Molinelli 2018, pp. 136–137). I would argue that the riddler plays not only with the basic meaning of these words, but with their more restricted nuances as well. βίᾳ and βιαίως are also used to indicate action that is involuntary and against nature (LSJ s.v. βία II 2 and βίαιος II);11 δίκαιος can be used to refer to symmetry and balance in objects and operations where there are no ethical issues involved (LSJ s.v. δίκαιος B). κλέπτειν means both steal and cheat (LSJ s.v. κλέπτω). I propose that the words in opposition are employed here to refer to the artificiality and the formal symmetry of a work of art, an interpretation that agrees with the immediate context of the treatise (3.10), which explicitly indicates a change of subject to tragedy and painting. In this case the opposition between βίᾳ/βιαίως and δικαιότατον shifts to one between κλέπτοντα καὶ ἐξαπατῶντα and βίᾳ/βιαίως, giving rise to the absurd idea of someone deceiving unintentionally. This is a highly sophisticated riddle, aptly engaging with the apate-in-art discourse initiated in the fifth century by Gorgias (Pollitt 1974, pp. 50–51).

4.5  The Cupping Riddle The cupping riddle ἄνδρ’ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν ἐπ’ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα (I saw a man gluing bronze with fire to another man) is cited by Aristotle in his definition of the ainigma (Poet. 1458a26–30) and as an example of metaphor (Rhet. 1405b1–3). It is noteworthy that although Aristotle cites the riddle twice, and at Rhet. 1405a36 praises it as popular (εὐδοκιμοῦν), he does not attribute it to Cleobulina.12 Clearchus of Soli (fr. 94 Wehrli = Ath., 10.452b10–11) apparently knew an expanded version, in which the hexameter is followed by the hemiepes οὕτω συγκόλλως ὥστε σύναιμα ποιεῖν (so closely glued together as to make them of common blood).13 The riddle

 Cf. the introduction “I saw” to numerous riddles in Crossley-Holland (2008, pp. 13, 29, 31, 32, 34, 37, et al.). 11  See also Aristotle, EN 1109b35–1110a4 with Taylor (2006, pp. 128–130). 12  Contrast Rhet. 1412a23–24, where he mentions Stesichorus by name as the author of the cicadas riddle. 13  See Kouskoukis and Leider (1983, p. 238) for the mechanism. 10

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has an epic colouring seen in the unsyncopated form ἀνέρι and the phrase πυρὶ χαλκόν (used in Od. 8.426 for the heating of water). The speaking subject describes what can only be a hideous torture effected by one man upon another, an impression enhanced by the mention of blood which we imagine spilling out of the tortured man. The riddle relies on the semantic ambiguity of κολλήσαντα, which can refer to the gluing of hard, inanimate objects, including metal, but also has the more general sense join, fast together, unite (LSJ s.v. κολλάω). In both senses the idea of permanence is inherent. Though the riddle includes a metonymy (χαλκόν, material for object), it can hardly be called metaphorical in terms of its contents. Rather, the whole riddle is a metaphor in terms of its referent, as explained by Aristotle.14 The theme of torture as a means to describe an object is widespread in many cultures (Taylor 1951, pp. 240–253). In such riddles the series of tortures, as a rule described in the first person, is mostly the process of the creation of the object, but the following riddle from Iceland—which begins, exceptionally, with the formula “I saw a man”—is similar in concept to the Greek riddle: I saw a man wearing long clothes sitting in bondage. He was strictly fettered at his head and feet. He is always wrapped up in three chains, but the fourth one around his knees is the tightest one, and is held by two boys attending at his either side. Then there came a small slave who tore and scratched him with raven’s beak, so that he gave forth a rattling sound. Then a naked woman came and ran violently to his crotch and beat and struck him so that he shook all over. […]

The series of tortures describe a loom and weaving (Taylor 1951, p. 244).15

4.6  The Flute Riddle This riddle occurs in Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages, where for the first and only time we get to meet Cleobulina in the (literary) flesh. She is explicitly presented as a riddler (148c–e) and composer of two riddles, the cupping riddle (154b) and the flute riddle (150f). It is Αesop who quotes the riddle as a proof of the new trend in flute-making of the day, the use of donkey bones: “It is in respect of this that even Cleobulina made a riddle (ᾐνίξατο) of the Phrygian flute: κνήμηι νεκρὸς ὄνος με κερασφόρωι οὖας ἔκρουσεν (a dead donkey struck my ear with a horned shin).” The riddle describes a frightening experience of the speaking subject being attacked by a monstrous creature. The monstrosity of the horned shin of an animal that is dead, yet active and aggressive, is an extraordinary conception that confuses the conceptual categories of the dead and the living and pictures an impossible combination of animal body

 On the retrospective classification of riddles as metaphorical see Harries (1976, p. 41).  Taylor (1951, p. 249, no. 678) describes a cask in terms of torture as undeserved punishment: “I […] am bound with iron bonds; […] a peg is beaten into my head.”

14 15

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parts. The imagery is possible only in nightmares and fairytales. Again, the solution reveals that metaphor is at work: the dead donkey’s shin is a metonymy for the flute; κερασφόρος, a word referring primarily to horned animals and therefore to living horns, refers here to the material of the mouthpiece of the flute, made of horn taken from dead animals; κρούω denotes the act of striking physical bodies, but here it refers to sound heard. The empirical ambiguity is enhanced by the contradiction inherent in the idea of a dead donkey hitting a person’s ear. Once more, metaphorical thinking takes us from an unsettling situation back to the civilized and safe human sphere. The riddle is an instance of the international theme of the dead speaking or being somehow active or doing something to or for the living, used in riddles referring to mundane objects (Taylor 1951, pp. 306–315).16 A variety of this theme, the dead who have a voice, is often used in riddles for musical instruments (Taylor 1951, p. 312).17

4.7  The Year Riddle The full version of the year riddle appears first in D.L. (1.90.14–91.5), in a citation from the Commentaries of Pamphile (a writer of the first century CE) who attributes it to Cleobulus. The father is one, the sons twelve. Each one has twice thirty daughters who have a double form. Some are white in the eye, others black. Though they are immortal, they all die. This is the year.18

This riddle is attributed to Cleobulina only by the Suda (Kappa 1718 and 1719), where only the first line is cited. It is another metaphorical riddle, in which the metaphor of family relations shows a hierarchical perception of time units in relations of cause and effect. The riddle also contains impossibilities, one of which lies in the great number of offspring. The greater impossibility is conveyed by the implied opposition that creates a cultural ambiguity, namely the idea that children of the same father can be of different colour, an idea that subverts the foundations of the concept of a Greek family. The year riddle is an international riddle, but less common in this form. Though individual comparisons of units of time (days, months, seasons) to persons is not uncommon in riddles worldwide, family relations are a relatively rare theme in the

 Cf. the riddles of leather and its various uses as boots, wine-skin, thongs: Symphosius, 56, 73; Crossley-Holland (2008, pp. 12 and 38). 17  Cf. Theognis 1229–1230 (= Ath., 10.457a–b) (conch-shell); Symphosius, 20 (lyre/tortoise); Taylor (1951, p. 434, no. 1059a and b) (violin); Judd (1930, p. 88, no. 245) (gourd flute). 18  Εἷς ὁ πατὴρ, παῖδες δυοκαίδεκα. Τῶν δὲ ἑκάστῳ / παῖδες δὶς τριάκοντα διάνδιχα εἶδος ἔχουσαι / αἱ μὲν λευκαὶ ἔασιν ἰδεῖν, αἱ δ’ αὖτε μέλαιναι / ἀθάνατοι δέ τ’ ἐοῦσαι, ἀποφθινύθουσιν ἅπασαι. / Ἔστι δὲ ὁ ἐνιαυτός. 16

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riddle of the year.19 Among the instances cited by Taylor (1951, p. 783), father-son relationships are the rule, while the children representing the days are usually half black, half white. In a couple of instances where daughters are mentioned they are black/dark/ugly and represent the nights of the month. In the riddles from the Germanic tradition cited in Wossidlo (1897, pp. 27–28, no. 36a–d and f) it is the mother-child relationship that predominates. Women represent the months in one case, but in all the other instances they are the weeks of the month or the year, with the days of the week as their children (gender unspecified). As in the Greek riddle the children/days are half black half white, with the difference that (as 36b and c make clear) it is the same child that is black and white.

4.8  The Riddles of Cleobulina The riddles surveyed above were composed by a composer, or composers, well versed both in epic diction and in (oral?) riddle tradition, at dates that cannot be determined (except, perhaps, for the riddles in Cratinus’ play). Three of them could have been prompted by the emergence of new trends (in flute making, medicine, art theory); if so, then they performed a common riddling function by assimilating the new to the familiar and thus facilitating diffusion of new knowledge (Hamnett 1967, p. 388). They all share a common stylistic trait: they are based on metaphor and opposition. Not all riddles are like that. There are riddles that are just literal descriptions, without trace of metaphor or ambiguity, like the literal description of the snail at Teucrus FGrH 274 F 3 (= Ath., 10.455e) and the human nail at AP 14.35. There is the riddle of the superlative, a literal question of the type “What is the most…?,” as in Athenaeus 10.451b and 10.457d. The seven types of riddles that, on the evidence of Athenaeus 10.448c7–e6, Clearchus of Soli (fr. 86 Wehrli) described in his treatise On Riddles comprise wordplay formation, based on the presence or absence of phonemes, syllables or elements of compound words. According to the same writer, the riddling game in the symposia of old consisted of intricate problems that proved one’s knowledge of poetry and geography (fr. 63.1 Wehrli = Ath., 10.457e–f15). The riddles attributed to Cleobulina belong to a particular type of riddle, one whose defining characteristic is ambiguity resulting from metaphor and/or opposition, with a resulting incongruity between phrasing and empirical reality. This is what folklorists have named the “true riddle,” that is, “a riddle which names an object […] and then gives supplementary information about the object which either does not apply to it or contradicts our normal experience of it […]” (Lieber 1976, p. 256). In Greek terms this is the ainigma (αἴνιγμα) that is the subject of Aristotle’s

 See Taylor (1951, pp. 368, 370–373 and 783) for instances; for the more common themes of trees, animals, inanimate objects and buildings see Taylor (1951, p. 412–421 and 795–798). On the year riddle in oriental traditions see Konstantakos (2005, p. 15, n. 12).

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and Trypho’s definitions.20 The association of Cleobulina with this type of riddle is also indicated in Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages, where ainigma is used to refer to her riddles (148d, 150f and 154b), and Athenaeus 10.448b8–9, where a reference is made to a collection with riddles attributed to her: τίνα δὲ Κλεοβουλίνη ἡ Λινδία προὔβαλλεν ἐν τοῖς Αἰνίγμασιν (what sorts of riddles Cleobulina propounded in her Ainigmata). The extraordinary relationships that are formed among members of different conceptual categories in the riddling utterance of this type of riddle constitute a disturbance of the cognitive order of the members of the culture. If one wishes to find the answer, one is forced to look for metaphorical correspondences among the different categories, considering the properties of the objects mentioned in the riddle (Lieber 1976). In this way, riddles help to reinforce and perpetuate existing knowledge as well as assimilate new knowledge to familiar experience (Hamnett 1967, p.  388). As the anthropologist Ian Hamnett (1967, p.  387) puts it: “Understanding the riddles, in the sense of seeing their ‘point,’ is thus an exercise in intellectual agility of a modest but nonetheless real kind.” Was there a special connection between women and the ainigma? Is it possible that there was a female tradition of riddling, consisting of this type of metaphorical riddles, embodied in Cleobulina and attached to Cleobulus because he of all the Sages was said to have composed all sorts of riddles (D.L. 1.89)?21 We do not have enough evidence to make a secure connection, but we do have some evidence that indicates that, contrary to the norm, women were not excluded from this type of discourse. The Sphinx and the Pythia, potent and dangerous female figures, were identified with it. Women feature as riddlers proposing ainigmata in comic fragments: Alexis fr. 242.6 (= Ath., 10.449d–e); Antiphanes fr. 194 (= Ath., 10.450e–451b); Diphilus fr. 49 (= Ath., 10.454a); and, probably, Cratinus’ Cleobulinai and Alexis’ Cleobulina. Plutarch (Quaest. Conv. 717a5) mentions as a fact that women propounded riddles at the Dionysiac festival of Agrionia at Orchomenos (Potamiti 2015, pp. 137–138). It is conceivable that the ainigma, a mode of discourse primarily oral and therefore readily available and not confined to intellectual circles, would have afforded women an informative mechanism, a means to learn, understand, and deal with aspects of their physical, social and cultural environment. The ainigma would have enabled women, who were largely deprived of intellectual development through a formal educative process, to explore issues ranging from the mundane to ontological and existential pursuits, engage with knowledge officially unavailable to them,

20  Aristotle, Po. 22.1458a26–27: αἰνίγματός τε γὰρ ἰδέα αὕτη ἐστί, τὸ λέγοντα ὑπάρχοντα ἀδύνατα συνάψαι (for this is the nature of the riddle, to attach impossibilities to a description of real things). Trypho, Rhet. Gr. iii p. 193 Spengel: αἴνιγμά ἐστι φράσις ἐπιτετηδευμένη κακοσχόλως εἰς ἀσάφειαν ἀποκρύπτουσα τὸ νοούμενον, ἢ ἀδύνατόν τι καὶ ἀμήχανον παριστάνουσα (an ainigma is an utterance of a frivolous cast, which conceals its meaning for the sake of obscurity, or presents something impossible and inconceivable). On the distinction of the ainigma from other types of riddles see Konstantakos (2004, p. 120). 21  Cf. Konstantakos (2005, p. 16).

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and possibly acquire knowledge of which men were ignorant. The figure of the Sphinx is a symbol of such knowledge that could potentially threaten men. But the Sphinx was silenced by a man, and the Pythia’s power of enigmatic speech was harnessed to the all-male religious centre of Delphi. The female tradition of the ainigma was made the butt of comic plays and met with the scorn of sophisticated men—like the physician Cleodorus in Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages 154b, who is forthright in his expression of contempt for Cleobulina’s ainigmata: How are these things [sc. the poetic contest between Homer and Hesiod] different, said Cleodorus, from the ainigmata of Eumetis? Perhaps it is not inappropriate for her to propose them to women, playing and weaving them, as other girls weave girdles and hairnets, but it is ridiculous that men of sense would make much of them.22

The idea that ainigmata are mere play and therefore unworthy of notice is expressed earlier, albeit more subtly, by Thales (148d). But Cleodorus’ polemic is revealing as to male attitudes to a female riddling tradition: it is womanish nonsense, not worth the attention of men, who are of a higher intellectual capacity. No doubt Cleodorus’ judgment is informed by the incongruencies in the riddling utterance of the ainigma, which baffles common experience and understanding, to the effect that the spontaneous reaction to such a question is that it makes no sense, that it is nonsense.23 Cleobulina, the female ainigma, remains silent at this affront. Yet a rejoinder that would have silenced Cleodorus is provided by traditional male philosophy, in the voice of Aristotle, remarking (in the epigraph to this paper) on the mental capacity required of one engaging in philosophy: “In philosophy it is a mark of shrewdness to be able to contemplate the similarities in things, even if they are very different.”

References Akíntúndé, A. (2015). Orature and Yorùbá riddles. Palgrave Macmillan. Ben-Amos, D. (1976). Solutions to riddles. Journal of American Folklore, 89(352), 249–254. http://www.jstor.org/stable/539691 Blacking, J. (1961). The social value of Venda riddles. African Studies, 20, 1–33. https://doi. org/10.1080/00020186108707124 Crossley-Holland, K. (2008). The Exeter book riddles. Enitharmon Press. Davenport, W. H. (1952). Fourteen Marshallese riddles. Journal of American Folklore, 65(257), 265–266. http://www.jstor.org/stable/537078

22  “τί δὲ ταῦθ’,” ὁ Κλέοδωρος εἶπε, “διαφέρει τῶν Εὐμήτιδος αἰνιγμάτων; ἃ ταύτην μὲν ἴσως οὐκ ἀπρεπές ἐστι παίζουσαν καὶ διαπλέκουσαν ὥσπερ ἕτεραι ζώνια καὶ κεκρυφάλους προβάλλειν ταῖς γυναιξίν, ἄνδρας δὲ νοῦν ἔχοντας ἔν τινι σπουδῇ τίθεσθαι γελοῖον.” 23  On the notion of nonsense in classical sources see Kidd (2014, pp. 16–51). He discusses riddles as nonsense but restricts this notion as pertaining only to riddles without an answer. I think that all true riddles are temporarily nonsense until they make sense.

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Gardella Hueso, M. (2021). Cleobulina of Rhodes and the philosophical power of riddles. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Georges, R.  A., & Dundes, A. (1963). Toward a structural definition of the riddle. Journal of American Folklore, 76(300), 111–118. http://www.jstor.org/stable/538610 Hamnett, I. (1967). Ambiguity, classification and change: The function of riddles. Man, New Series, 2(3), 379–392. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2798727 Harries, L. (1976). On the deep structure of riddles. African Studies, 35, 39–43. Henderson, J. (1991). The maculate muse: Obscene language in Attic comedy (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. Judd, H. P. (1930). Hawaiian proverbs and riddles. The Museum. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/ Record/001635248/Home Kidd, S. E. (2014). Nonsense and meaning in ancient Greek comedy. Cambridge University Press. Konstantakos, I. M. (2004). Trial by riddle. The testing of the counsellor and the contest of kings in the legend of Amasis and Bias. Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue danoise de philologie et d’histoire, 55, 85–137. Konstantakos, I. M. (2005). Amasis, Bias and the seven sages as riddlers. Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Folge, 29, 11–46. Kouskoukis, C. E., & Leider, M. (1983). Cupping. The art and the value. The American Journal of Dermatopathology, 5(37), 235–239. Lieber, M. (1976). Riddles, cultural categories, and world view. Journal of American Folklore, 89(352), 255–265. http://www.jstor.org/stable/539692 Matelli, E. (1997). Sulle tracce di Cleobulina. Aevum, 71(1), 11–61. http://www.jstor.com/ stable/20860710 Molinelli, S. (2018). Dissoi logoi: A new commented edition [Doctoral dissertation, Durham University]. Durham E-Theses Online. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12451/ Olson, D. S. (Ed.). (2009). Athenaeus. The learned banqueters (Vol. 5). Harvard University Press. Pollitt, J.  J. (1974). The ancient view of Greek art: Criticism, history, and terminology. Yale University Press. Potamiti, A. (2015). γρίφους παίζειν: Playing at riddles in Greek. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 55, 133–153. Simmons, D. C. (1958). Cultural functions of the Efik tone riddle. Journal of American Folklore, 71(280), 123–138. http://www.jstor.org/stable/537682 Taylor, A. (1951). English riddles from oral tradition. University of California Press. Taylor, C. C. W. (2006). Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics books II–IV. Oxford University Press. West, M. L. (2007). Indo-European poetry and myth. Oxford University Press. Wossidlo, R. (1897). Mecklenburgische Volksüberlieferungen. Erster Band: Rätsel. Hinstorff’sche Hofbuchhandlung Verlagsconto. Dr Anna Potamiti  received her PhD degree at King’s College London with her doctoral thesis “Verbal Modes of Popular Culture in Ancient Greek Literature.” She taught Greek language courses at KCL and Birkbeck as a teaching assistant, and Greek literature courses as associate lecturer at the Open University in London. She is now workshop teaching staff (tenured) at the Department of Philology, University of Patras, where she teaches courses on Greek language and literature, among them a research-based course on ancient Greek folklore. She researches ancient Greek literature from a perspective informed by folklore and popular culture theory, taking a special interest in short verbal genres like proverbs, riddles and jokes. https://upatras.academia.edu/ AnnaPotamiti

Part III

Women in Plato’s Republic and Statesman

Chapter 5

What Happened to the Philosopher Queens? On the “Disappearance” of Female Rulers in Plato’s Statesman Annie Larivée

Abstract  Michèle Le Doeuff coined the term “déshérence” to describe a phenomenon affecting the relation of women to knowledge. Déshérence reflects the antithetical connection between women and value: if something is socially devalued, women may claim it; if something women already possess reveals itself as valuable, then they have to relinquish it. My article shows how Plato’s Statesman offers a perfect example of déshérence in its two complementary forms. But the article’s primary objective is to shed light on the connection between Plato’s Republic and his Statesman. Indeed, the presence of déshérence becomes clear when considering a perplexing question about the Statesman: What happened to the philosopher queens in this dialogue? If advocating for them was once seen as worth risking a formidable wave of mockery and attacks in the Republic, why are the philosopher queens nowhere to be seen in Plato’s following dialogues? This question leads to a reconsideration of the role of the guardians in the Republic and to a recognition of their presence in the Statesman. As it turns out, those we call “philosopher queens” are still instrumental to what Plato sees as an excellent polis. The reason why we do not see them is that they are not where we expect them to be. Keywords  Philosopher queens · Statesman · Republic · Plato · Le Doeuff · Déshérence

5.1  Introduction In her inquiries about the sociology of knowledge, Michèle Le Doeuff coined the term “déshérence” to describe a recurring historical phenomenon that has affected the relation of women (as a social group and as a category) to knowledge. Déshérence A. Larivée (*) Department of Philosophy, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_5

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is not a common word in French and it is not easy to translate. Used in a literal way, it is a legal term that refers to the situation of goods or funds unclaimed when their owner dies heirless. As applied to women’s history, déshérence reflects the antithetical connection between women and value. To put it simply: if something—any expertise, art, knowledge or function—is socially devalued, women may claim it; reversely, if something women already possess reveals itself as highly valuable, then they will sooner or later have to relinquish it.1 Although it was not part of my initial goal, one outcome of this article is to show how Plato’s Statesman offers a perfect example of the phenomenon of déshérence in its two complementary forms.2 This should be of interest to anyone who cares about the history of women in the Western cultural tradition, and about the mechanisms that perpetuate androcentrism and sexism. But the article’s primary objective is more focused and will be of interest to historians of philosophy who wonder about the connection between Plato’s Republic and his Statesman. Indeed, the paradigmatic presence of déshérence in this text became gradually clear to me while considering a perplexing question about the Statesman: what happened to the philosopher queens in this dialogue? If advocating for them was once seen as worth risking a formidable wave of mockery and attacks (Republic 450b–451b, 452a–d, 453c–d and 457b–c), why are the philosopher queens nowhere to be seen in Plato’s dialogues after the Republic? Unexpectedly, this question led me to reconsider the status and role of the guardians in the Republic and to recognize their enduring presence in the Statesman. Those we call “philosopher queens” might not have gone anywhere and may still be instrumental to what Plato sees as an excellent polis. The reason why we do not see them, perhaps, is that they are not where we expect them to be. My question is distinct from the classic inquiry about the disappearance of the philosopher kings.3 That is, I am not concerned with Plato’s alleged shift from optimism to pessimism concerning philosophers’ potential for political leadership—a question that enthralls many historians of philosophy but that is probably of little interest to non-philosophers. What concerns me is the disappearance of women leaders. That said, the answer I offer involves a new look at the relation between philosophy and political leadership in both dialogues.

1  “[…] anything that acquires value is absorbed into the heritage of those to whom everything of value is attributed, whereas anything that has lost value is off-loaded onto those whose lot in life is to accept other people’s hand-me-downs” (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, p. 32). In what follows, I made the decision to keep the French word déshérence. 2  Déshérence in the Republic is also discussed, but in the case of this dialogue, I borrow largely from Le Doeuff (1998/2003). 3  Schofield (1999) is a good example of that line of questioning. Unsurprisingly, those who wonder about “philosopher kings” are usually more interested in philosopher kings than philosopher kings (in fact, the titles of many books and articles on the topic suggest their authors may have forgotten about the existence of philosopher queens or consider it unimportant).

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5.2  The Statesman, a “Feminist” Dialogue? At first glance, there seems to be something refreshing about the many challenges the Statesman poses to what second-wave feminists have called the patriarchy.4 In his inquiry about the definition of the genuine king or statesman, the Eleatic Stranger rejects pretty much all figures traditionally associated with that form of authority. The dialectical search reveals that, in contrast with the traditional patriarchal figure of Cronos, the politikos/basilikos is not to be thought of as a shepherd who provides for his herd (274e and 275c); that it should not be confused with the figure of the king-priest despite their common name, basileus (290d–e); that it has nothing to do with the realpolitik type of ambitious and domineering politicians trained by the sophists (291a–c and 303c); and that it is distinct from the traditionally imposing figures of the military chief, the public orator, and the judge (304e–305d). Although the positive descriptions are not as abundant, two central features emerge from the search: the real king or statesman is fundamentally a caretaker, and the paradigm that best illustrates that type of epimeleia/therapeia is that of the weaver.5 As a weaver, the politikos provides a type of care that makes the social fabric both robust and supple by promoting concord and friendship (ὁμονοία καὶ φιλία) (311b9) between citizens of opposite character. It is all about interlacing people together harmoniously—which seems to have little to do with the traditional honor-­ based Greek model of “masculine” leadership.6 Thus, it would be no overstatement to say that, in the Statesman, Plato tries to initiate a fundamental paradigm shift in the understanding of political power, a shift that is of great interest from a feminist standpoint in that it challenges “hegemonic masculinity” at a deep cultural level.7 The challenge here is not just to assign important political jobs to qualified women, as was the case in the Republic. With the figure of the weaver, Plato seems to rethink politics in light of responsibilities and values traditionally associated with women. This choice of paradigm anticipates the efforts of contemporary feminists who promote an understanding of ethics and politics as spheres where interdependence, relationality and care are vital.8

4  For a history of the source and uses of this charged term, see the riveting piece by classicist Higgins (2018). 5  On care, see 275e–276d; on weaving, see 279a–283b, 289c and 305e–311c. 6  I use this gendered language to refer to features traditionally associated with a certain social group and category. Throughout this article, I do not, myself, make any essentialist claim concerning features that would be intrinsically masculine or feminine.  7  I use this expression in a loose way. Applying the Marxist concept of cultural hegemony to feminist concerns, it refers to both: (1) the cultural norms of masculinity used to justify and effect the oppression and submission of females and femininity, and (2) the dominance of a particular type of masculinity traditionally celebrated as more “real” than others (i.e. the patriarchal, warrior type). 8  I am thinking not only of representatives of the “ethics of care” (who often seem to flirt with essentialism, and to reinforce the traditional view of women as natural caretakers), but also of more critical philosophers, closer to the emancipatory spirit of second-wave feminism such as Nussbaum (e.g. 2000, pp. 281–297).

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Is it not tempting, under such conditions, to imagine the genuine politikos as a woman? Are we not invited to see the ideal weaver as an über-philosopher-queen? This possibility appears even more appealing when we attend to the work that first used weaving as an image to critique a divisive style of political behaviour portrayed as masculine: Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (565–586). In Aristophanes’ play—a text that certainly influenced Plato’s choice of paradigm9—it is a woman, Lysistrata, who promotes an alternative way of doing politics, oriented towards peace and based on the creation of ties within and outside of the polis. Now, oddly, despite Plato’s debt towards Lysistrata, the possibility of the statesman being a stateswoman is never envisaged in the Statesman. Although the portrait of the genuine politikos remains extremely formal, we do know that he is a man. This is not explicitly discussed, but the pronouns and adjectives used to refer to this figure indicate that he is male (ἀνήρ, i.e., a man, not a woman) (258b3 and 311c10).10 Should we be shocked by the disappearance of the philosopher queens of the Republic in the Statesman? Did Plato “regress”? Or, to borrow expressions used by Robinson (2018, pp. 198–200 and 205), did “Plato the Traditionalist” finally win over “Plato the Revolutionary”?11 The thesis I will defend is that the Republic and the Statesman fundamentally share the same position on the political role of women. This uniformity of views is usually overlooked for two reasons. First, commentators fail to appreciate, or even perceive, the role assigned to women in the Statesman. Second, as modern interpreters of the Republic, we tend to be too optimistic when it comes to Plato’s assumed “feminism” in this work. Let us start with the second question.

5.3  L  e Doeuff’s Challenge to Feminist Interpretations of the Republic The question of Plato’s “feminism” is not a new topic, far from it. Many Plato scholars have debated the question,12 but I want to bring into the conversation an author whose perceptive views on the question deserve more attention than they have previously received. In her powerful 1998 book, Le Sexe du Savoir (translated under the title The Sex of Knowing, Le Doeuff 2003), historian of philosophy Michèle Le Doeuff offers a vigorous critique of the idealisation of Plato as a defender of women’s participation in knowledge and political power. I will focus on the second aspect of the account she offers in the section titled “Divine Plato?”, although I will briefly invoke the first aspect, which is astonishingly original.  For a comparative analysis, see Lane (1998, pp. 164–171) and El Murr (2002, pp. 61–66).  See Robinson (2018, pp. 198–199); Lane (1998, p. 167). 11  According to Robinson, although the “traditionalist” orientation is present throughout the dialogues, the silence about women’s political role in the Statesman signals, at best, the beginning of a shift away from “Plato the Revolutionary” towards “Plato the Traditionalist.” 12  Tuana (1994) includes many important contributions to the debate, to which we can add Annas (1996), the main scholarly text discussed by Le Doeuff. 9

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5.3.1  Utopia as Disavowal of Reality in the Republic Le Doeuff adopts a surprising position on the question of utopia in the Republic. When it comes to the situation of women, instead of seeing the Ideal polis designed by Socrates as a proposal for a not-yet prevailing but highly desired state of affairs, Le Doeuff sees it as a means to obliterate an already existing reality. Simply put, in her view, for Plato to situate women philosophers in the remote sphere of utopia is for him to deny their actual existence. One could try to settle the question of the presence or absence of women philosophers in fourth-century Greece by examining a variety of historical documents (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, p. 51; Deslauriers 2012)13; but there may be no need to look that far, for as Le Doeuff observes, a proof of the existence of women philosophers at the time can be found in the Republic itself. At 456a, Socrates implicitly acknowledges their existence when he declares: Women share by nature in every way of life just as men do, but in all of them, women are weaker than men. […] Then shall we assign all of them to men and none to women? […] We’ll say, I suppose, that one woman is a doctor, another not, and that one is musical by nature, another not. […] And won’t one be athletic or warlike, while another is unwarlike and no lover of physical training? […] And one a philosopher, another a “misosopher” (φιλόσοφός τε καὶ μισόσοφος)? And isn’t one spirited and another spiritless?14

There are women philosophers just as there are women physicians, musicians, gymnasts and warriors. Such women already exist by Socrates’ own admission. How else could he confidently tell that they are capable or not? Utopia thus becomes a means of disavowal and exclusion. As Le Doeuff explains: Thus if Plato notes in passing, in the Republic, that some women, but not all, display a taste for wisdom or philosophy, it is perhaps because he was not completely denying reality as he saw it. But then he limits this possibility to the Ideal City. So there is reason to wonder about the restriction he introduces—the possibility of women’s access to philosophy pertains only to the Ideal City. […] since Plato does not invent a way for women to gain access to philosophy, then what is of his own making—and therefore a likely part of his system—is having situated women’s philosophical practice in an imaginary city, remote from real life. (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, p. 52)15

Here, Le Doeuff focuses on the participation of women in philosophy, but a similar case could be made for political leadership: exiling politically active women to a distant utopia also involves a denial of reality. In that case, one does not have to look far away from Plato’s circle to find external evidence for women’s political  See also Le Doeuff (1998/2003, pp. 63–64) for a critical discussion of female Pythagoreans.  Le Doeuff (1998/2003, pp. 51–52) comments on this passage. For the Republic, I use Grube’s translation revised by Reeve; for the Statesman, I use Rowe’s, both in Cooper & Hutchinson (1997a, b). Here, I took the liberty of modifying the following part: “isn’t one woman philosophical or a lover of wisdom, while another hates wisdom?”. 15  In some ways, Le Doeuff’s interpretation comes close to the reading of male commentators from another era evoked by Bluestone (1987, pp. 41–50), who saw Plato’s proposal concerning female guardians as a dystopic joke (the difference being that they did so on the grounds of misogynistic biases). 13 14

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activity since, in his Politics, Aristotle alludes—with utter dislike—to military states such as Sparta where women manage the polis and rule.16 The proof that women could rule is that some already did. Again, presenting women rulers as the object of a laughable—hardly implementable—fiction obscures reality and amounts to a subtle form of “negationism.”

5.3.2  D  éshérence in the Republic, or, on Women’s Equal Access to… Chores Another way in which the utopian Kallipolis attempts to exert control over women’s participation in philosophy and politics is by strictly delineating the confines of their practice. In fact, if we step back and consider not only what the interlocutors of the Republic say about philosophy as a requirement for ruling, but also the way they themselves practice it, we realize that the dialogue presents us with a two-tier approach to philosophy. At an imaginary level, we find “philosophy” as a component of the mandatory and fixed training prescribed to future guardians who will be constrained to govern. Dialectics—and for a select group amongst the select group receiving an advanced training, the contemplation of the form of the good17—follows the study of mathematics, geometry, the (still underdeveloped) study of stereometry, astronomy, and musical theory (522c–540b). This pedagogical regime is strictly regulated, and its access controlled. At a real-life level, we see philosophy as a free, critical, unhindered, creative, and potentially subversive form of ethical, pedagogical and constitutional exploration practiced by Socrates and his

 Although his words are far from being fully limpid, Aristotle’s core message is clear: legislators who do not pay attention to women and neglect to submit their conduct to laws put the constitution at risk. This, he asserts, is exemplified by the situation of Sparta, a state where women were given too much power and freedom (in contrast with the male citizens submitted to extreme discipline). Aristotle seems to attribute this to two causes: the general tendency of military men to be somehow more “erotic” than others (and so to be controlled by women), and the fact that men in such states spend a lot of time away from home, which means that women manage things in their absence. In such states, “citizens are dominated by their women, like most military and warlike races […]. So it is understandable why the original author of the myth of Ares and Aphrodite paired the two […]. That is why the same happened to the Spartans, and why in the days of their hegemony, many things were managed by women. And yet what difference is there between women rulers and rulers ruled by women? The result is the same” (Aristotle, Politics 1269b18–1270a5, trans. 1998). 17  The practice of dialectics lasts from age 30 to 35, after which those who distinguish themselves will be led to the contemplation of the good itself at age 50, after 15 years of military service. It is only after reaching that epistemic summit that the guardians-in-chief are endowed with ruling responsibilities (539e–540a). This means that not all those who are initiated in dialectics reach the top level, and that not all will rule at the highest level. 16

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interlocutors gathered in the Piraeus.18 These are clearly not the same sort of “philosophy.” Only the second one would qualify as political philosophy by today’s standards19—and perhaps as philosophy period.20 Whereas (some) women will be forced to partake in the first, Plato never considers their participation in the second. This is where the concept of déshérence proves helpful. When she presents it, Le Doeuff explains that she draws inspiration from Andrée Michel’s work on the gendered division of labor: […] in any given society, women perform the tasks that men disdain. Forget about symbolism, about women bound to their fountains or hearths, to cooked rather than raw, liquid rather than solid, or whatever! Forget about the notion that the most demanding labor require masculine muscular strength and that, because of our weaker arms, women are restricted to less heavy or less dangerous tasks, which are therefore (according to this argument) quite normally accorded lesser value. Thanks to a heuristic principle like Michel’s, we begin to see something that was previously invisible: rather than reason in qualitative terms, tying the supposedly feminine quality of a particular task to the female essence of the person performing it or the masculinity of another task to the maleness of its performer, we should focus on the variable social value of tasks. (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, p. 12)21

Le Doeuff convincingly applies this principle to her inquiry and provides multiple examples of faculties and forms of knowledge described as “feminine” once they had fallen into discredit throughout the history of philosophy.22 She summarizes the phenomenon she calls “déshérence” as follows:

 Obviously, I do not deny that this discussion is also “imaginary” in a sense (Plato provides us with a literary representation of a philosophical discussion). But this fiction presents itself as a type of discussion that could have taken place in real life, whereas the Kallipolis is presented and discussed as a fiction. 19  Except for the fact that the essences that are the object of the dialectical training are ethically relevant (538c–e), there seems to be little specifically “political” about this training, and it is no easy task to conceive how these theoretical skills can be of help for governance. True, its usefulness for military strategy is repeatedly underlined (522c–e, 525c, 526d and 527d), but what is depicted as crucial is the role of these disciplines in the drastic re-orientation of the guardians’ attention and concern, away from the realm of becoming towards the realm of being (524e–526b, 526e, 527d–e, 529d, 532c and 533d). How this change of orientation equips the guardians for ruling is, however, not perfectly clear. The first section of Sedley (2007, pp. 256–271), titled “Why philosophers are equipped to rule,” tackles this problem. But although it explains why Plato believes that philosophers are equipped to rule—that is, because of their possessing “a mathematical knowledge […] at a level higher than any of the individual mathematical sciences,” focused on “the mathematical principles of proportionality on which all lower values ultimately depend” (p. 270)—it does not really explain how such knowledge can be of help for governance. 20  Morrison (2007, p. 236 ff.) distinguishes two types of “philosophy” in the Republic, one that remains aspirational (as exemplified by Socrates and his interlocutors in the context of their search), and one that corresponds to the perfect knowledge reached by the most accomplished guardians of the Republic. I agree with this distinction, although with Le Doeuff, I wonder if the second type really qualifies as philosophy. 21  Le Doeuff does not mention specific works by Michel, a French sociologist and activist, but I suppose this idea can be found in Michel (1972). 22  Such as “intuition” (once belittled as being “feminine” and now rehabilitated), reason (devalued in German idealism), sensitivity (mocked by Bergson), etc. 18

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Let us get back to Plato with this conceptual tool in hand. In the Republic, Socrates is confident: the class of guardians in charge of ruling the Kallipolis will include women.23 The title “Philosopher queen”—not explicitly present in the Republic but commonly used by commentators to refer to these elite women24— sure sounds imposing. But what does “philosopher” and what does “queen” mean, here? Before examining the question of their seeming disappearance in the Statesman, we must start by having a sober look at these women’s qualifications, their training and their actual job description. The guardians are initially depicted as skilled, strong, dedicated watchdogs. They form a pack whose raison d’être is to safeguard the polis by defending it against outer and inner enemies (375a–376c, 414b, 416a–417b and 422d). Simply put, they seem to combine functions that nowadays would be played by the military, the police, and state intelligence agencies. Unsurprisingly, given the canine metaphor, the most crucial prerequisite to fulfill their mandate is an emotional attachment to the polis (412c–e, 413c and 503a) and a certain form of dogmatic loyalty: they must be able to retain the true opinions which were instilled in them under all circumstances (412d–413e). Along with this doxastic constancy, nothing better illustrates the limited epistemic field in which the guardians move than the infamous gennaion pseudos. This noble lie, whose aim is to maintain civic unity as well as the hierarchical division of the polis in classes corresponding to three types of metals— i.e. gold for the rulers, silver for the auxiliaries, and iron and brass for the farmers and craftsmen—is intended for the whole population, including the guardians. They will hopefully absorb it, or at least their descendants will (414c1–2 and d1–3). As for their education, it is focused on the cultivation of character: they will be trained through a mix of music and gymnastics, designed to calibrate excessive boldness or mildness in their soul, to make them both moderate and courageous (375b–c and 410c–412a). The image of good shepherd dogs used to describe the guardians seems well-chosen. In fact, the animal comparison is crucial in Socrates’ later defence of the integration of women in the group. Just as female and male dogs equally share the burden of guarding the herd and of hunting, and do everything in common, individuals of both sexes must compose the class of the guardians (451c–e and 466c). Thus far, there seems to be nothing especially “royal” about these guardians. Later, in Books VI and VII, however, Socrates will focus on the elite group of the guardians whom he distinguishes from the wider class of those he describes as their  Confident but not adamant. See 450d–451b where Socrates expresses doubt about the measures he is about to propose. 24  In fact, as a look at Brandwood (1976) indicates, the vocabulary linked to royalty (nouns, adjectives, related verbs) is relatively rare in the Republic (24 occurrences). More importantly, it is rarely used to refer to the leaders of the Kallipolis (473c11, 499b7, 502a6, 520b6 and 543a4). 23

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auxiliaries.25 This elite class, composed of a restricted number of individuals selected from the group of the “guard dogs,” will receive a more advanced education (503d–504d) and it is this extensive education, adapted to their rare qualities, that warrants the commonly used titles of philosopher queens and kings.26 But in what sense are these elite guardians philosophers? Furthermore, are all philosophers evoked in the Republic guardians? Here, multiple misunderstandings may arise, and clarifications are required. First, we must be careful not to confuse the philosophers Socrates refers to when he presents the “third wave” (473c, 499b and 502a–b) with the philosophers he depicts as the guardians-in-chief of the Kallipolis.27 These figures are not totally unrelated, but they are not identical either.28 The philosophers alluded to in the “third wave” refer to concrete existing individuals who could take the initiative of implementing the Kallipolis in the real world. Socrates evokes such individuals in the context of the discussion surrounding the feasibility of the Kallipolis and presents their work as a necessary condition for its establishment (473a–e). Here, the candidates could be  either an existing monarch (the word “king” first appears in relation with philosophers in this passage, at 473c11) who would convert to philosophy, or an already-existing philosopher who would be charged with the implementation of a polis (one could think of a scenario similar to the colonial mission evoked in the Laws, for instance). Considering the subordinated situation of women at the time Plato was writing, we can safely infer that this Ur-philosopher-monarch would most probably be a man—someone like Socrates’ most gifted male followers, or a better version of the tyrant of Syracuse with whom Plato was associated according to the Seventh Letter—not a philosopher queen.29 Although this Ur-philosopher-king is not totally unrelated to the imaginary guardians-in-chief of the Kallipolis, he is distinct from them in many ways.30 First, we have seen that he would have to be a man, whereas the Kallipolis has guardians of both sexes. Second, this individual could not have been brought up in the  This distinction was already mentioned earlier in the Republic. See 414b, 415a–c, 421b and 440d.  Not all of them reach the final stage of knowledge and power and take turns in ruling, only those who, after 50, have contemplated the good. 27  See 503b for instance. I use the expression guardians-in-chief to refer to the guardians who receive the education enabling them to rule, as opposed to the auxiliaries. 28  I am aware that Weiss (2012) identifies different types of philosophers in the Republic. I have not read her book at the time of submitting this article and cannot tell if there are correspondences between our distinctions. However, her account is more complex and pursues a general objective that differs from mine. 29  I say “most probably” because it remains possible to imagine a female intellectual such as Aspasia playing a leadership role in an advisory capacity (in collaboration with a leader such as Pericles, for instance). But it is significantly less likely, and the possibility of a philosopher indirectly “ruling” as political advisor is not explicitly evoked in the Republic, in contrast with the Statesman. 30  The title “king” is first (and almost exclusively) used to refer to this category of philosopher (473c11, 499b7 and 502a6). The only occurrence of the word that refers to the second type is at 543a4 (to which we can add 520b6 where it appears in the context of a metaphor involving bees). 25 26

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Kallipolis and would not, as a result, have been submitted to the systematic selection process and training that Socrates describes in Books VI and VII (see 520a–b). There is something serendipitous and “divine” about his appearance (492e–93a, 499b–d, 500c–d, 501e–502c and 540d–e). Third, since his own mission is very different from that of the guardians, we can infer that his dispositions also differ from theirs. Remember that the philosophically trained guardians of the Kallipolis will first have gone through the selection and education process that applies to the wider class of watchdogs (521d–522a). Just like the auxiliaries, their main function is one of safeguarding. How this function is fulfilled differs between these two groups; whereas the auxiliary-guardians perform their protective mission through surveillance, policing and military operations, the guardians-in-chief are first and foremost guardians of the laws. They are in charge of preserving the politeia that was established by the inaugural philosopher king (412a, 421a, 425e, 484b–d, 502d, 503a and 504c). However, although they may share intellectual abilities, the Ur-philosopher-­ king of the third wave, unlike the elite guardians of the Kallipolis, is no guardian. He is not of the “good dog” type of philosopher. His initial mission is not conservation; rather, it is revolution—or, at least, the implementation of a radically new type of politeia.31 As such, there has to be something intrepid and creative about his character, which is the very opposite of the fundamentally orthodox tendencies of the leaders he would select and train to rule the Kallipolis if he were to follow Socrates’ instructions. His main mission involves radical change, not the prudent and tenacious preservation of an existing state of affairs. While it is true that establishing a stable politeia is his ultimate goal, he will only succeed by first causing a political “tsunami of change” (Sedley 2007, pp.  256–257). In many ways, this Ur-philosopher-king has more in common with Socrates and his young followers than with the elite guardians of the Kallipolis. This long digression about the difference between the revolutionary Ur-philosopher-king and the “philosophically-trained” guardians in charge of preserving the Kallipolis was necessary to set the scene for Le Doeuff’s main argument about déshérence in the Republic. As she notes, although the education and scientific training of the male and female elite guardians is long and comprehensive, the type of “dialectics” they will be trained in is strictly controlled by, defined by, and subordinated to their civic duties.32 They learn in order to serve, and what will allow them to serve. Regardless of the level they reach (strictly scientific, dialectical, or dialectical with contemplation of the good), these guardians participate in a savoir clos (a closed-off type of knowledge) and can in no way be described as political philosophers, unlike the Ur-philosopher-king Socrates wishes for and perhaps  At 425a–26c, Socrates alludes to and implicitly promotes something that looks like a revolution, and the possibility of a violent reaction to the “third wave” evoked at 474a also suggests that there is something radical and subversive about his proposal. 32  Many passages not quoted by Le Doeuff support her reading. On the subordination of the training to civic duties, see 519d–520a and 520b–c. On the controlled aspect of the training, see 537d–540a. Throughout this section, I provide textual evidence not used by Le Doeuff to underscore her argument. 31

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incarnates—or, at least, whose emergence he tries to provoke.33 In Plato, the participation of women in politics and philosophy is limited to guarding the laws set out by the Ur-politician. As for the real-life, unrestricted type of political philosophy, the type practiced by Socrates and his interlocutors in their creative legislative activity (as well as by the Ur-philosopher-king), there is no question of including women in this sphere.34 The idea that women could undertake a similar type of foundational work or collaborate in the organisation of the Kallipolis is not considered. Thus, we must accept, as Le Doeuff puts it, that “Plato imagines that women will have access to philosophy whenever such access is of no consequence” (p. 57): In the Ideal City, some women will be initiated into the practice of dialectic, but in this imaginary place nothing is of any further consequence for the basic organization of communal life. The broad outlines of this City—for example, that there will be three classes, not four, two, or none—have been decided by the men who were debating at Polemarchus’s house in Piraeus. The dialogue depicts them designing the Ideal City together, well before male and female Guardians arrive on the fictive scene that ordinary men are creating […]. The Guardians, male or female, will no longer have to invent the City or make major decisions. In modern terms, they will be administrators rather than politicians [plutôt que des politiques]35 who would have to think and rethink the organization of communal life, and perhaps even reflect about what is at stake. Their function is to maintain a ready-made machinery of state rather than to make use of their own imagination or reflective capacities. (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, pp. 57–58; emphasis mine)

A critique of Plato’s “feminism” that draws attention to the utilitarian motives guiding the inclusion of women in the class of the Kallipolis’ guardians36 has merits: the objective pursued by Plato is not to promote women’s flourishing, but rather to fully exploit the resources they can offer, at the social level.37 But it does not do justice to the deep and concealed form of exclusion highlighted by Le Doeuff,  And as Le Doeuff asks elsewhere (1998/2003, p.  26), “Is there really such a thing as closed knowledge? When there is closure, it means that individuals have been appropriated by knowledge: they do not possess it, they are possessed by it.” One could object that I may be assuming an anachronistic conception of knowledge. Although I cannot provide this demonstration here, I believe there is ample ground in the dialogues to show that Plato’s conception of philosophical knowledge is that of an unending search—one that requires creativity and the constant disposition to question what seems to be “known,” as Dixsaut (1985) has shown. This is certainly the type of inquiry that Plato chose to display in the dialogues. That said, I see no need to provide such a demonstration here, since, with Le Doeuff, I admit that I am making a judgment concerning what counts as philosophy. 34  See Le Doeuff (1998/2003, p. 59): “Since no Guardian (male or female) is supposed to have the freedom to question the founding doctrines of the City, this can mean only one thing: that the philosophical dialectics into which they have been initiated in the course of their education is not entirely free, nor is it philosophy as one would like to practice it. Power over others, with the aim of maintaining a social order created for all time, could in fact be the absolute antithesis of philosophy and not its ultimate vocation. In this case, women never really gain access to philosophy in Plato’s theater.” 35  I add the original term used by Le Doeuff, because there is a difference of connotation between “politicien/politicienne” and “politique” in French. 36  See, for example, Julia Annas (1996, pp. 7–12). 37  For a critique of that line of argument, see Le Doeuff (1998/2003, pp. 48–49). 33

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p­ resent at the philosophical and constitutional level. The fact that “it is almost impossible to imagine an older sister of Hipparchia, along with a few other women, debating with the men assembled at Polemarchus’s house in Piraeus” (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, pp. 55–56) also deserves attention. Nevertheless, one could question the relevance of the concept of déshérence by arguing that opening up any level of civic achievement to women—in reality or in imagination—represents an elevation and the possibility of an increased status, not a loss. And is it not the case that their soul is depicted as possessing “gold,” a clear sign that Plato intended for the (female) guardians to occupy an eminent role in the Kallipolis? This is where critiques based on utilitarian arguments are especially useful. For we can wonder if the rhetorical power of the metal metaphor is required mainly to “sell” an assignment that would otherwise appear repellent, like the proverbial honey that masks bitter medicine. In fact, we do not have to speculate much about Plato’s possible hidden agenda, since the uninviting and altogether burdensome nature of the guardians’ assignment is openly acknowledged in the text.38 Theirs is a mandatory, consuming, self-denying, displeasing, and inescapable lot. Of course, women can be part of that. As Le Doeuff ironically muses: […] since [Plato] believes that governing is an onerous task that the Ideal City will require of philosophers as a duty, asking why female philosophers would also have to govern the City amounts to being surprised to see that a philosopher has managed to be coherent. This question is not as ironic as it looks: male philosophers are not always coherent when it comes to applying the central ideas of their thought to women’s social and intellectual situation. But if it is a question of an onerous task… (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, p. 52)

To grasp the true spirit of Socrates’ “promotion” of women as rulers in Plato’s Republic (or more accurately, as administrators, if we follow Le Doeuff), I suggest that we compare it to a similar strategy found in another piece of Socratic writing. In Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, a distinguished citizen, Ischomachus, shares the secrets of his success with Socrates, who marvels at the freedom Ischomachus seems to enjoy despite his multiple responsibilities. The first measure that must be taken to make this situation possible, Ischomachus explains, is to delegate a considerable portion of one’s leadership duties to one’s wife (Oeconomicus VII 3–X 13).39 This is exactly what he did. Thanks to this initiative, there is no reason for him to worry about ruling his oikos, since his wife is perfectly capable of managing it on her own.40 To achieve this, Ischomachus convinced her of the dignity of her role,

 See 466b (although their freedom from daily practical concerns is depicted as enviable at 465c), 419a–420a, 421c, 517–c, 518b–c, 519d and 520a–e. We may think of the myth of the metals as a way to prevent members of the bronze class from aspiring to functions that belong to the silver and gold classes, but it may well be the case that it aims to ensure that members of the silver, and gold class in particular, not be tempted to give up their own assignments. 39  Ischomachus’ explanations about the training of his wife as a manager of the oikos fills close to a quarter of the whole text of the Oeconomicus. 40  See also Resp. 465c. One could question the appropriateness of comparing Plato’s political views to Xenophon’s views on leadership in the Oeconomicus, but the idea that leadership requires dis38

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elevated her to the rank of partner, and then trained her to be an effective manager and leader. He also “taught her that she would not be justified in feeling annoyed if [he] assigned more duties to her than to the slaves, in connection with [their] possessions” (IX 16, trans. 1994). Note that he, too, describes his wife as a leader (ἡγεμών), a guardian of the laws (νομοφύλαξ) and a queen (βασίλισσα)—she is like a queen-bee.41 This is why, despite his many responsibilities as a wealthy and eminent citizen, Ischomachus can afford to engage in leisurely discussion with Socrates at the agora.42 Did the historical Socrates manage to sell such a deal to Xanthippe? It is impossible to tell.43 However, it is clear that Plato portrays him as dreaming about imposing a similar strategy of managerial delegation to capable women (and men)44 in the Republic. Let us turn to the Statesman for another relaxed discussion between men of leisure.

5.4  W  ho Is the Statesman? More Precisely, Who Is the Politikos? Clearly, the statesman of the Statesman is no stateswoman. But should this lead us to conclude that the figure of the female guardian45 has vanished in that dialogue? Not letting titles uncritically influence our understanding of the politikos’ nature and focusing instead on his job description is, again, crucial for clarifying the question. This requires a rigorous examination of the definitional target of the inquiry led by the Eleatic Stranger, and of the preconceptions we harbor when reading this difficult dialogue. Let us start with the object of the definitional search in the Statesman, i.e. the πολιτικός or βασιλικός, the political or royal man. Throughout his dialogues, Plato constantly engages in work with language that involves the creation of new terms and the (re)definition of existing ones, and this is especially true of the Statesman. In this dialogue, Plato playfully creates new words, many of them ending in -ikos, to refer to a variety of techniques (Brisson & Pradeau 2003, pp. 273–281). More tinct skills in the private and public spheres is challenged by both disciples of Socrates. See Xenophon, Oeconomicus XXI 2–11; Memorabilia II 4, 2; 6, 4; Plato, Statesman 258e–259c. 41  A queen and guardian of the laws (IX 15); a “queen-bee” (ἡγεμὼν μέλιττα) (VII 18; VII 32). I have previously written a comparative study on the Republic and the Oeconomicus (Larivée, 2012), but my appreciation of the reasons behind Plato’s and Xenophon’s promotion of women’s contribution to leadership has progressed. 42  On the leisure enjoyed by founders, as opposed to the lack of leisure that characterizes the rulers, see Lane (2013, pp. 112–113). 43  We do not know how things went in his own oikos, but Xenophon portrays Socrates trying to “sell” Ischomachus’ method to Critobulus, his first interlocutor in the Oeconomicus III 10–16. 44  On the delegation of unwanted tasks to women and men, see Le Doeuff (1998/2003, pp. 59–60). 45  I will avoid the traditional “philosopher queen” from this point forward.

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importantly for my purpose, Plato seems to be the source of the linguistic novelty that consists in using the adjective politikos as a noun, as Joseph Bright Skemp (1952, pp. 18–20) noted a long time ago (Rowe 1995, pp. 1–2). Now, this innovation comes with an increased risk of confusion for the contemporary reader who tends to take for granted that the title politikos refers to what we, nowadays, regard as an actor in the field of politics, i.e. a politician, or, more precisely, since the term is exclusively used in a positive sense in the dialogue, a statesman.46 Nothing guarantees, however, that what has since become the meaning of that nominalized adjective in some modern languages47 is what Plato had in mind at the time he wrote the dialogue. In fact, many elements in the Stranger’s inquiry suggest that it does not have this meaning. Therefore, I will henceforth only use the transliteration politikos as well as the Latinized title Politicus when referring to the dialogue, in order not to foreclose interpretive possibilities.48 To begin with, and above all, it is perplexing that, right from the start and throughout the dialogue, the politikos is defined by the possession of a science or expertise (ἐπιστήμη/τέχνη) that is essentially cognitive (γνωστική, 258e5, 259c10–d1 and 260a1–2), as opposed to practical (258e, 259c–d, 260b and 305c–d). This means that the politikos is first and foremost a knower, not a doer, which is certainly not what comes to mind when one thinks nowadays about a politician or statesman. We could try to reconcile this view with our understanding of what a “statesman” is and does by saying that what the Eleatic Stranger is after is an understanding of the ideal politikos, rather than a description of existing ones.49 No matter how outlandish it may feel at first, we could probably accept the fact that, ideally, statesmen should possess the knowledge and expertise enabling them to adequately do their job, although it is possible that no such person exists. This is somewhat helpful, but it does not fully solve the problem: it seems odd to conceive of the politikos as a knower rather than as a doer. Ideal or not, the possession of a science is all that matters when it comes to assigning the title “politikos” according to the Stranger. In other words, actual participation in a government or involvement in the business of ruling has no weight whatsoever in defining him since, as Christopher Rowe (1995, p. 1) notes, “it is agreed that the mere possession of the requisite knowledge is a sufficient condition of being a πολιτικός.” This is the Stranger’s starting point in the dialogue, and it is puzzling.

 Skemp (1952) suggests that Plato progressively moved from a use of the word that meant politician or “so-called politicians” to a dignified use that meant statesman (as is the case in the Statesman). My suggestion in what follows is different. 47  Such as French, for example, a language in which the exact equivalent of the Greek nominalised adjective used by Plato is a common way to refer to a statesperson: “un politique” (male), “une politique” (female). As politikos in the Statesman, it does not, in French, have the potentially negative connotations associated with the noun politicien/politicienne (politician). 48  The reason I did not do so from the start is that it is important to become aware of the possible confusions carried by the traditional translation “statesman.” 49  See Rowe (1995, p. 1): “[…] what turns out to be defined is someone who, if he exists at all, is not actually in power at all […]. He is, as we might put it, the (Platonic) ideal ruler.” 46

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To be clear, the emphasis on the possession of a non-practical type of knowledge does not mean that the politikos is totally disconnected from action, since his cognitive expertise is of the prescriptive kind (ἐπιτακτικόν, 260b3–4). Although the science of politikê does not act, it provides prescriptions for actions that ought to be performed by others. With the introduction of this mediated relation to action, the contemporary reader may start to feel a bit more at home, but the emphasis on the possession of an essentially cognitive science, prescriptive or not, remains quite odd. Indeed, this means that someone could not be part of a government (now or ever), and perhaps even not be involved in the business of ruling at all (in any way, ever), and still deserve the title politikos if only they possess the prescriptive science of politikê (259a–b). This remoteness from action can vary in degree and take different forms, as many elements of the text suggest. Accordingly, someone can qualify as politikos/basilikos even if he has no public status and does not appear as the face of power. The Stranger evokes this possibility early on in the context of the initial division, when he compares the politikos to a private physician capable of advising a public doctor (259a–b).50 In such a situation, we would not hesitate to identify “the doctor” as the individual who possesses the science and provides guidance by issuing instructions, irrespective of the possession of an official title or public status. The Stranger transposes this situation to politikê and invites us to accept that, similarly, a private citizen could serve as the private counsellor of a ruler. Provided that he possesses politikê epistêmê, he would qualify as politikos.51 Although it is often alluded to in secondary literature, few interpreters take this comparison seriously.52 Doing so leads to the realization that “statesman” is a problematic translation for politikos. For even if we can acknowledge the crucial role  τί δ᾽; ὅστις βασιλεύοντι χώρας ἀνδρὶ παραινεῖν δεινὸς ἰδιώτης ὢν αὐτός, ἆρ᾽ οὐ φήσομεν ἔχειν αὐτὸν τὴν ἐπιστήμην ἣν ἔδει τὸν ἄρχοντα αὐτὸν κεκτῆσθαι; […] ἀλλὰ μὴν ἥ γε ἀληθινοῦ βασιλέως βασιλική; […] ταύτην δὲ ὁ κεκτημένος οὐκ, ἄντε ἄρχων ἄντε ἰδιώτης ὢν τυγχάνῃ, πάντως κατά γε τὴν τέχνην αὐτὴν βασιλικὸς ὀρθῶς προσρηθήσεται; This possibility is reiterated at 293a: δεῖ γὰρ δὴ τόν γε τὴν βασιλικὴν ἔχοντα ἐπιστήμην, ἄν τ᾽ ἄρχῃ καὶ ἐὰν μή, κατὰ τὸν ἔμπροσθε λόγον ὅμως βασιλικὸν προσαγορεύεσθαι. 51  It is tempting to draw a parallel with the passage of the Republic where Socrates declares that a tyrant who remains a private citizen is way better off than one who has the bad luck of inheriting an actual tyranny (578c). This paradoxical statement suggests that one does not have to actually be (have the “job” of) a tyrant in order to be one. Note that this is different from saying that one is a tyrant potentially, or even to declare, in elegant Beauvoirian prose: One does not become a tyrant, one is born one. The focus here is not on the nature/nurture alternative. What is meant is that what defines a tyrant is the current dynamic structure of the psyche, a structure that remains the same regardless of the person’s means or sphere of influence. But almost nothing is said about the soul of the politikos in the Politicus (with the exception of a quick mention at 259c6–8). There is no allusion to a soul being politikê or royal (basilikê). Given this, the textual parallel may not be that helpful after all. 52  It is alluded to often but rarely fully explored—and this despite its interest, considering Plato’s adventures in Syracuse as narrated in the seventh Letter. For the most detailed interpretation of this passage, see Hourcade (2017, pp. 159–174). 50

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played by a political advisor who remains on the margins of public life, we would not say of that private individual, in contemporary English, that he is a statesman, let alone the statesman, no matter how competent he happens to be. But this is precisely what the Stranger wants us to accept: it is the advisor, not the “ruler,” who is the genuine politikos or “king.”53 As explained in the initial steps of the division, politikê epistêmê is a prescriptive expertise that is αὐτεπιτακτική or “self-­ prescriptive,” which means that its prescriptions do not originate from someone else’s mind but from one’s own. In that case, they originate from the advisor, not the “ruler.” Paying attention to the case of the knowledgeable advisor helps us realize that the “ruler” who simply utters commands or the officials who ensure that the prescriptions are obeyed are of little interest to the Stranger. He is after the one who devises prescriptions. The paradigm of weaving poses another challenge to our expectations concerning the identity of the politikos and leads us further in the direction of the politikos’ remoteness from immediate action. Indeed, it suggests the possibility that Plato thought of the politikos more as a knowledgeable political initiator—like a “founding father” or primary legislator responsible for establishing the basic structure of a polis—rather than a head of state continuously involved in its management.54 As Xavier Márquez (2012, p.  25) observed, weaving as a paradigm implies such an initiatory type of responsibility: just as real weavers are not caught in their fabric and ultimately relinquish their creation, the political weaver should also be detached from the “fabric” he produced, and not directly involved in the management of the state. This does not mean that he can play no governing function whatsoever at any point. While still alive, he may directly intervene when adjustments and legislative “repairs” to the fabric are required,55 or when immediate intervention is needed, for instance in times of war. It means that the role of a politikos as considered in the dialogue consists primarily in devising intelligent legislative prescriptions that will

53  On the role of the equivalence between politikos and basilikos/basileus in Plato’s Statesman, see Larivée (2018, pp. 26–27). 54  A possibility first mentioned by Lane (1995, p. 283), who later abandoned it, and fully embraced by Márquez (2012, pp. 10, 24–25, 335 and 357). The reason briefly mentioned by Lane (1998, p. 178) for rejecting her own former interpretation remains mysterious to me. She writes: “In Lane (1994, pp. 192–195), I argued that the entrusting of offices to the people indicates that the statesman may only be fitfully present in the city. […] ‘Choosing’ (311a4) and ‘rules and directs’ (311c6) do, however, indicate a continued presence of the statesman against my previous claim. I thank Christopher Gill and David Sedley for urging me to reconsider.” I have not read her 1994 dissertation, but in Lane (1995, p. 283), she rightly observes that “the final description of the web is not termed the work of the statesman himself: it is the web of political activity (πολιτικῆς πράξεως), and it is woven by the kingly art (311b7–c6). Thus, this passage does not constrain us to identify an ever-active human agent.” This seems right to me. As for “choosing” (311a4), similarly, it can very well refer to a selection criterion established by the politikos and expressed in his legislative prescriptions. 55  See Laws 772b7–c1. Many passages of the Laws point in that direction. The initial legislator prepares future legislators who will intervene in case of need. See for instance 769b–771a, 835b. See also Resp. 497d1–2, 540b5–7.

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shape the life of a community in the long term.56 As for the ongoing running of the polis in accordance with such prescriptions, it is another, practical responsibility that falls to a group of leaders (ἄρχοντες) whose selection and training is the politikos’ main responsibility, as we will see below.57 Thinking of the politikos as a foundational rather than executive figure troubles deeply rooted hermeneutic propensities reinforced by translations (and by most commentators). However, defining this figure by the possession of a cognitive science may well lead to an even more remote connection to action. Indeed, although this may be controversial, I would argue that nothing in the definition of the politikos requires that his prescriptions be implemented. The comparison with the competent physician describes the politikos as being able to provide advice (ἱκανὸς συμβουλεύειν, 259a1; παραινεῖν δεινὸς, 259a6–7).58 The prescriptions are actually provided and the politikos oversees their implementation if he finds himself in the situation of an architect working on a specific assignment (260a), but they do not have to be implemented for him to qualify as a capable politikos/basilikos. If this is right, the Socrates of the Republic (as primary nomothetês of the Kallipolis) as well as the Athenian Stranger of the Laws (through the guidance he offers to one of the founding nomothetai of Magnesia, his Cretan interlocutor Clinias),59 are the type of persons who qualify as politikoi according to the Eleatic Stranger’s definition. More precisely, it subtly suggests that philosophers such as Plato himself, as the author of these prescriptive models, may deserve the titles of “politikos” and “king.”60 To summarize: defining the politikos as an “auto-prescriptive” knower means that he is not to be confused with those whose main role is to give orders and govern in the field on an ongoing basis. He can provide the bulk of his prescriptions in his capacity as a founding legislator, or in his capacity as an advisor of such a legislator,

56  The genuine politikos is a legislator (305b5 and 309d1). 295a makes clear that, in collective care, general prescriptions (laws) are necessary—there is no way a politikos can provide personalised prescriptions for each citizen individually. Thus, the constitution established by the genuine (i.e. knowledgeable) politikos relies on laws. That said, the only excellent laws are those issued by the genuine politikos (not those adopted through a process of deliberation in which non-experts are involved), and like the physician or ship captain, he is not tied by his own past prescriptions. He will modify them if necessary (295e–297a and 300d). 57  Despite appearances to the contrary, an interpretation that emphasizes the political weaver’s ability to seize the kairos is not incompatible with this reading. Indeed, the most significant conditions the politikos must consider when making “kairotic” decisions for a specific polis are those that prevail at the time of its foundation, such as its specific location, its resources, the current composition of its population, etc., all concrete factors explicitly discussed in the Laws (Márquez 2012, pp. 316–317). 58  As Bodéüs (2004, p. 29) notes, we find the same surprising possibility in Aristotle: “La haute idée que se fait Aristote de la politique ne s’accommode visiblement pas du rang volontiers subalterne accordé à la sagacité des politiques-manœuvres qui forment l’exécutif. […] le vrai politique […] pourrait n’être pas au gouvernement! […] [cette conception] ouvre la possibilité au moins théorique d’être politique sans faire la loi, ni être au gouvernement”. 59  See 702c. 60  See Larivée (2018, p. 27) for similar claims made by Cynics.

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or as a constitutional thinker capable of designing a politeia and of overseeing its implementation. But what relationship does the politikos have to those whose role is to implement these prescriptions and make sure things get done? The short answer is that the members of the polis’ leading class are the main object of the politikos’ attention. They are the fabric he produces as a weaver.

5.5  T  he Enduring Presence of the (Male and Female) Guardians as Protective Cloak We must wait until the very end of the Politicus to learn anything remotely concrete about what the politikos is “weaving,” and how. The Stranger discloses his intent with the following statement: “Then it seems that we should discuss the royal intertwining—of what kind it is, and in what way it intertwines to render us what sort of fabric” (306a1–2, trans. 1997b, slightly modified). In comparison with the prolonged, tortuous, and mostly negative inquiry that precedes, the account of weaving, which closes the dialogue, is surprisingly succinct, simple, positive, but also very general. It fills merely five Stephanus pages (305e–311a), in contrast with the 49 preceding pages. This divergence in length and style is radical and calls for elucidation. The best explanation, I believe, is meta-discursive and inter-textual. It first requires that we keep in mind the specificity of the Politicus in comparison with Plato’s other political dialogues. Although it sounds too obvious even to be stated, the Politicus is not about doing the job (or about imagining doing the job) of a politikos. It is about demarcating that figure, conceptually. The dialogue does not take place in the same discursive context as the Republic or the Laws. It does not offer prescriptions, except, perhaps, in its final part. But even there, the prescriptions offered are situated on a different level. In a way, the end of the Politicus offers very basic guidance to those whose role is to provide political prescriptions: it provides a few prescriptions about prescription.61 This explains the very general nature of the account provided at the end of the dialogue and its sententious brevity. Unlike Socrates with the Kallipolis, or the Athenian Stranger with Magnesia, the Eleatic Stranger is not actually performing the work of a legislator. There is no such thing as “the city of the Politicus.”62 The Stranger is rather highlighting a few areas of concern that all politikoi engaged in such work should consider with special attention. Let us examine the text with these considerations in mind. After general background clarifications on the opposition between courage and moderation as well as

 The Laws are also rich in such meta-prescriptions, but they are embedded in the concrete prescriptive work undertaken by the Athenian. 62  Contra Rowe (2018, p. 323). 61

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the recurring tensions between those who display such ethical temperaments (306a–308c), the Stranger’s explanations focus on five areas of responsibility incumbent upon politikê as a form of weaving, more precisely as a form of intertwining (συμπλοκή, 306a1–2). Considering them in the form of a list helps us appreciate, again, the distance between the figure of the politikos and the responsibilities of a (modern) head of state. All five areas concern people, though not all people. The Stranger is here focusing on the creation of a class of citizens charged with a leadership mission.63 We are told that the politikos must consider: (1) these citizens’ selection, (2) their education, (3) their bonding through a shared belief and unifying vision, (4) their association through conjugal unions and reproduction and, (5) their leadership mandate. In what follows, I will consider each area while emphasizing how the text is compatible with or supports my views concerning the politikos as a prescriber remote from action. Given that this interpretation may seem unorthodox, I will also insist on the signs that suggest that the Stranger is concerned with the creation of a leading class.64 This survey is necessary to make an apt comparison between the Republic and the Politicus on the question of the potential role of women in political affairs and leadership.

5.5.1  Selection The first area of concern predates the actual production of the civic fabric. It deals with assessing and selecting the “source material” that politikê, as a weaving expertise, can use. As a result of this preliminary process, some individuals will be discarded as wholly unsuitable material, while others—who cannot participate because of their “ignorance” but who can still be of use to the polis—will be enslaved (309a). As will be the case with the four other areas of concern, there is no concrete explanation of the method used for selection, except for a brief mention of the assessment of character in children’s games (308d). This omission is important. It emphasizes that a politikos needs to think about this preparation phase, rather than elaborate concrete prescriptions on the topic (such as those found in the Republic and the Laws). The message is simple: political expertise requires that the politikos provide prescriptions concerning the selection of the basic elements that will form the polis’ protective cloak (later mentioned at 311c). The Stranger here simply expresses the general principle guiding the triage.

 Although the expression “ruling class” is more common in English, I will use “leading class” in what follows to avoid the suggestion that this class has legislative powers (the exclusive privilege of the politikos). It is a class of leaders charged with executive functions only. 64  Unorthodox but not unprecedented. Rowe (2018, pp. 320–323) seems to hesitate, however, when he states that the crucial passage in support of this interpretation “is brief to the point of obscurity, and should probably not be pressed too hard.” 63

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5.5.2  Education Individuals who show noble dispositions will receive a specific education (308c–309a). Again, the Stranger’s goal is not to devise a concrete education program for the ruling class, as Socrates did with the Kallipolis. The objective is simply to enunciate a general principle applicable to all cases. The politikos must concern himself with a program destined to train and prepare the best elements of the polis for governance. Having a closer look at the passage where the general principle is enunciated is a good occasion to make key clarifications. […] it [the politikê that is truly in conformity with nature (ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ἀληθῶς οὖσα ἡμῖν πολιτική)] will first put them [human beings] to the test in play, and after the test it will in turn hand them over to those with the capacity to educate them and serve it towards this particular end. It will itself lay down prescriptions for the educators and direct them, in the same way that weaving follows along with the carders, and those who prepare the other things it needs for its own work, prescribing for and directing them, giving indications to each group to finish their products in whatever way it thinks suitable for its own interweaving. (308d–e)

It is important to quote the text at length—and to add in brackets what hides behind the pronoun “it”—to prevent a misconception that could arise from the metaphorical nature of the passage. Indeed, the presence of verbs expressing a function of direction can create the impression that what is portrayed here is the politikos himself, who would personally command and oversee, as a vigilant commissioner, the work of educators on the ground. This type of function is highly reminiscent of the role of the great Epimelêtês of education in the Laws (765d–766c). But we should remain cautious and observe that the subject whose function is metaphorically portrayed here is not a person. Indeed, the Stranger is not describing the politikos. He is describing the responsibility of politikê: a politikê that is “truly in conformity with nature” will provide precise legislative prescriptions in the domain of education. The Republic gives a good example of this by determining who will learn what, at what age, in what way, for how long, for what purpose, etc., in the Kallipolis.65 This example of politikê providing prescriptions in no way involves the politikos (Socrates in this case) managing educators. In fact, politikê can direct and even supervise by devising measures fulfilling such a function. This can take the form of the creation of a ministry of education, for example, led by a great Epimelêtês with a team of examiners responsible for implementing a curriculum and supervising its application. Such a distinction may appear unnecessarily subtle, but it is crucial. Let us recall that the politikos’ prescriptive work is not practical but of a “gnostic” kind, a feature that is highlighted once again right before the passage analysed here (308d–e).  While explanations on education remain succinct and formal in the Politicus, examples of extensive and detailed nomothetic prescriptions concerning paideia are provided in the Republic and the Laws. Again, this is because the Politicus is not a prescriptive work as such, or only in the “meta” sense in that it provides basic prescriptions concerning political prescription.

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As the last sentence of the quote above indicates, political expertise is more directly involved in the next phase of the production of the fabric, which corresponds to the “weaving” stage, where sumplokê (intertwining) occurs. At this point, it becomes increasingly clear that the core responsibility of the politikos is the creation of a leading class. This is done by interlacing two types of “thread,” i.e. good-­ natured citizens displaying two potentially clashing temperament types: Then as for the others, whose natures are capable of becoming composed and stable in the direction of nobility, if they acquire education, and with the help of expertise, of admitting commingling with each other—of these, it [basilikê (ἡ βασιλική), 308e4] tries to bind together and intertwine the ones who strain more towards courage, its view being that their firm disposition is as it were like the warp, and the ones who incline towards the moderate, who produce an ample, soft, and—to continue the image—wooflike thread, two natures with opposite tendencies. (309a–b)

Of all the meta-prescriptions provided by the Stranger, this one is the most specific. However, we can better appreciate its general character by comparing it to the approach favored by Socrates in the Republic. In the Kallipolis, Socrates’ ambition is to create a class able to preserve the polis by selecting individuals who can develop a character consisting of balanced dispositions: the shepherd dog character, which is both spirited and gentle, courageous and moderate. His approach is intra-­ psychic. In comparison, the Eleatic Stranger’s principle of temperament mixing allows a politikos to reach the same result by using a less stringent selection criterion. The equilibrium could be produced in Socrates’ way, but it can also be sought at the class level by creating attachment between individuals displaying these opposite tendencies. Socrates’ strategy is a specific (and more demanding) instantiation of the general principle of temperament balancing identified by the Stranger.66 In any case, the fact that this principle is highly reminiscent of the first stage of the education of the guardians in the Kallipolis confirms that Plato, in the Politicus, is concerned with the necessity for the politikos to pay special attention to the creation of a leading class. Interestingly, Plato’s concern for the challenge posed by the interaction between different types of temperaments amongst leaders anticipates contemporary training methods based on the assessment of diverse “personality styles” amongst managers.67 The goal is not to convert or subordinate one type to another, it is to make diverse strengths compatible and enable individuals with different temperaments to

 The possibility of selecting an individual possessing both tendencies in cases where a single chief is needed is evoked (311a), but this possibility is not taken as the norm. 67  One of the most influential being the so-called “DISC assessment” (D for Dominance, I for Influence or Inducement, S for Steadiness, and C for Compliance or Conscientiousness) developed by Clarke based on psychologist Marston’s distinction of four personality styles. D and C styles uncannily resemble Plato’s characterization of the bold and the moderate temperament. In a recent book, Emre (2018) offers a critical investigation of the origin of the famous Myer-Briggs personality test, the first of its type inspired by Jung’s work. 66

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work together.68 Nevertheless, Plato’s two general strategies to face this challenge will probably not appear as relevant today, as the first one relies on what we could call “ideology” and the second one, “eugenics.”

5.5.3  S  oul-Weaving of the Two Temperament Styles Within the Leading Class The little that is said about the first strategy, which consists in the creation of a “divine bond” involving the eternal part of the soul, is cryptic. Explanations are especially brief (less than a Stephanus page) and remain, I suspect, voluntarily vague, not only because the Stranger here works at the level of principles, but also because discussing that type of ideological device publicly may be counter-­ productive. We simply learn that the political weaver is responsible for bonding citizens of complementary temperaments through a shared and stable opinion about core values: I call divine, when it comes to be in souls, that opinion about what is fine, just and good, and the opposites of these, which is really true and is guaranteed; […] it belongs to the politikos and the good legislator alone to be capable of bringing this very thing about, by means of the royal muse, in those who have had their correct share of education […]. (309c–d, trans. 1997b, slightly modified)

In what could “that opinion” consist, exactly? Although it is not necessary to dwell on this question at length, it is tempting to speculate a bit. It could well consist in the firm conviction that the fine, the just, and the good are inseparable (just as their opposites are), a belief that is at the very heart of Socrates’ whole argument in the Republic, and whose importance is also openly emphasized in the Laws, where the Athenian insists on the necessity for poets to produce works that deploy this dogma (660e–664a).69 It is worth noting that the Athenian presents this conviction with a drop of cynicism in the Laws, since he openly admits that the legislator would have to convey this doxa, even if it were not true (663d5–10). And although the Eleatic Stranger presents this “divine bond” as a true belief (not as a beneficial pseudos) in the Politicus, its depiction as a precious pharmakon created by technê at 310a3 is reminiscent of the “noble lie” that acts as the ideological cement of the Kallipolis. So, the Stranger could also be thinking of the necessity for the politikos to root his prescriptions in a myth of the origins meant to unify a specific polis. This narrative would be more specific than the conviction that the good, the just and the fine are inseparable, hence the allusion to the required assistance of a “royal muse” (309d2–3). The politikos is a mythmaker, like Plato.  Similarly, in the Politicus, both temperaments are given “equal status,” as Rowe notes (2018, p. 321). 69  See also Resp. 613a. 68

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The general principle presented by the Stranger thus seems to admit several concrete instantiations. However, we must keep in mind that the main goal of the doxastic bond is to create the ground for a congruity between the two temperamental groups of the bold and of the moderate.70 It makes them amicable, but it does not act like a transformative device that would make members of both groups indistinguishable. We are talking about a shared vision that enables the courageous and the moderate to retain their distinctive qualities while being compatible. It allows the brave to “share in what is just,” thus avoiding ferocity, and the moderate to “become genuinely moderate and wise,” thus avoiding “simple-mindedness” (309e). However, it also appears that these two groups’ distinctiveness could diminish over time if the political weaver is successful in the performance of his fourth responsibility.

5.5.4  (Re)production of the Ruling Class While nothing is explicitly said about gender thus far—the neutral term anthropoi used by the Stranger (308d2 and 311b9) allows for everything he says to apply equally to females and males—the fourth area of concern necessarily involves both women and men. What is at stake is the responsibility, for the expertise of political weaving, to promote the coupling of the opposite temperaments previously mentioned (310a–e). Several aspects of this discussion are relevant to my purpose. First, the eugenic objective guiding this prescriptive principle confirms that the scope of concerns that characterize politikê is of a more structural and foundational nature, rather than the deliberative and decisional nature required for day-to-day leadership. Political expertise requires that the political weaver think about the well-being of the polis generations ahead. Decisions that could seem advantageous in the short term (such as the coupling of bold partners, or of moderate partners) may well lead to a “genetic” disaster generations from now (309d–e).71 Politikê as a form of weaving involving a “human bond” thus involves planning in the long term. As with the three previous areas of concern, the Stranger’s description remains at the level of principles. No specific eugenic measure is promoted; his instruction is

 Here again, it is interesting to note that this general approach is favoured by contemporary management methods based on personality styles. Such training regimens are all about identifying one’s own style, identifying one’s collaborators’ style, and learning to “flex.” Any internet search on the topic will lead to a myriad of such methods currently used in a variety of professional and institutional contexts. 71  “[…] it is in the nature of courage that when it is reproduced over many generations without being mixed with a moderate nature, it comes to a peak of power at first, but in the end it bursts out completely in fits of madness. […] And in its turn the soul that is too full of reserve and has no admixture of courageous initiative, and is reproduced over many generations in this way, by nature grows more sluggish than is timely and then in the end is completely crippled.” 70

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limited to the principle of combination of opposite temperaments. Deciding whether, in the case of a specific polis, this coupling will occur through a state-organised “lottery” (as in the Republic), or if it will rather rely on civic persuasion (as in the Laws), is for a specific politikos to determine. However, as a form of additional guidance, the Stranger mentions the alternative principles that should be avoided: the widespread selection approach focused on similarity either of wealth and social status, or of temperamental style (310b–d). Let us observe in passing that this general principle indicates a potential flaw in the nomothetic work achieved by Socrates in the Republic. Indeed, his Kallipolis simply relied on the union of elite females with elite males (as in the case of animals picked by breeders for reproduction in function of their valuable traits), without considering the necessity to combine more spirited females with more moderate males and more moderate females with more spirited males (459d–e).72 It overlooked the importance of mixing psychological temperaments in the long-term perspective that characterizes politikê technê. Finally, it is important to emphasize that eugenics, though a core consideration here, is not the only reason why coupling should be a central concern for the politikos. What is at stake is also the quality of a shared life based on philia and homonoia for individuals who make up the leading class (311b9).

5.5.5  The Leadership Mandate of the Ruling Class The (very) long-term goal of the political weaver should be to create a race of leaders whose souls harmoniously contain both tendencies (as Socrates wished for his class of guardians). Nonetheless, it is his job to join courageous and moderate citizens of both sexes into a tightly knitted fabric.73 This is especially important because it is this class who will collectively lead the polis: For this is the single task and complete task of kingly weaving-together, never to allow moderate dispositions to stand away from the courageous. Rather, by working them closely into each other as if with a shuttle, through sharing of opinions, through honors, dishonor,

 δεῖ μέν, […] τοὺς ἀρίστους ταῖς ἀρίσταις συγγίγνεσθαι ὡς πλειστάκις, τοὺς δὲ φαυλοτάτους ταῖς φαυλοτάταις τοὐναντίον, τῶν δὲ μή, εἰ μέλλει τὸ ποίμνιον ὅτι ἀκρότατον εἶναι, καὶ ταῦτα πάντα γιγνόμενα λανθάνειν πλὴν αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἄρχοντας, εἰ αὖ ἡ ἀγέλη τῶν φυλάκων ὅτι μάλιστα ἀστασίαστος ἔσται. 73  One could argue that the temperament style that is assessed is not their own, but that of the family to which a young person belongs. If so, it could be the case that only men are considered (the brides’ father, uncles, brothers, etc.). But apart from the fact that it seems difficult to assign a cohesive temperament to a collective, the only other passage where Plato uses the term ekdosis in his dialogues (one of the terms used by the Stranger, at 310b3, to describe marital “exchanges”) suggests that what is at stake is the assessment of the temperament of the individuals to be married (Laws 924d6–8). Besides, the repeated use of the term ta genê seems to refer to the two types of temperaments discussed, not to specific families who would collectively embody a temperament. Although Rowe (1995, p. 244) agrees that the term “genê” here means “type” or “class,” his translation (“family-type”) may lead to confusion. 72

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esteem, and the giving of pledges to one another, it draws together a smooth and “fine-­ woven” fabric out of them, as the expression is, and always entrusts offices in cities to these in common (τὰς ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν ἀρχὰς ἀεὶ κοινῇ τούτοις ἐπιτρέπειν). (310e–311a)

This passage calls for several observations. First, as explicitly indicated, the politikos is not to be confused with the civic leaders. The class of the mixed couples combining bold and moderate individuals will be in charge of managing the polis, not the politikos. The latter’s most crucial function is to make sure leaders are properly selected, educated, and combined to perform their leading task. Second, as will become even clearer a few lines further, the fabric which is the core responsibility of the politikos is not composed of all people living in the polis but of a limited class of “noble-natured” citizens (309a8–b1) who distinguish themselves by the possession of two specific virtues, courage and moderation, that destine them to rule together (311a–b).74 Nothing prevents citizens from possessing other virtues (or from possessing none as long as they are not especially vicious), but they are not part of the fabric evoked here. Third, since the passage is located immediately after the discussion concerning the need to combine bold and moderate citizens of both sexes through marriage, females are not only included in this fabric, it would seem they are included in equal numbers to males. If this is correct, the Politicus goes further than the Republic in terms of promoting equality at the level of civic leadership, since nothing in the Republic guarantees that the class of guardians will be composed equally of females and males. Indeed, in the Kallipolis, reproduction is ensured by temporary unions in sacred “erotic festivals,” which means that there are no permanent couples and so no need for men and women of this class to be equal in number. But the Stranger’s principle of temperament combination seems to involve the formation of something like a stable class of power couples. However, nothing suggests that politikê requires that all members of the leading class be entrusted with precise leadership responsibility at all times, which means that there is no necessity to ensure that male and female commanders are equal in number at all times. The class among which leaders are selected contains an equal number of (differently tempered) females and males combined in permanent couples. Finally, the passage which immediately follows 310e-311a, and with which Plato ends the dialogue, reveals more about the function of the fabric thus produced: Then let us say that this is the telos,75 for political action (πολιτικῆς πράξεως), of the fabric which is the product of even intertwining; it is, given the dispositions of brave and moderate human beings, once their life is brought together by the royal expertise (ἡ βασιλικὴ τέχνη) in a community that rests on concord and friendship; once that expertise achieves, for the sake of a shared life, the most magnificent and best of all fabrics; once it covers with it all the other inhabitants of cities, both slave and free; then, as I was saying, the telos is, for

 They are “an elite, exclusive group” (Rowe 2018, pp. 322–323).  I choose to keep the Greek word, here, since it is hard to decide if the Stranger means that the fabric has reached its completion (most translators read it that way), or if he wants to evoke its objective (Dixsaut et al. 2018, ad loc.).

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I will limit myself to three observations. First, in contrast with the expectations created by the modern metaphor of the “social fabric,” the description provided here clearly shows that the fabric produced by political weaving is not to be confused with the polis as such. The whole body of free citizens and slaves is not part of this human fabric; rather, it is enveloped by the cloth which plays the role of a cloak for the polis. Second, this image of the cloak suggests that the main role of the leading class is to protect, to preserve the polis. This general principle has found an especially strong expression in the legislative work accomplished by Socrates in the Republic with the special attention paid to the group of the guardians. But the same purpose could be reached through the creation of various types of leading classes. Third, contrary to what most translations suggest, the passage (311b7–c7) reaffirms the non-practical telos of politikê. For it is through the mediation of a class of leaders who work as practical actors—as a weaver of leaders who are, themselves, responsible for political action—that the politikos cares for the polis. Sadly, this crucial fact is obscured by most translations, which is why here I follow Léon Robin’s (1950) construction by providing a slightly modified English adaptation of his French translation. The original text is convoluted, and the translation provided here does not try to mask this feature. The whole passage—cut into several sentences by some translators (e.g. Brisson & Pradeau 2003), in order to make it more legible—consists of one long, intricate sentence containing several clauses coordinated in a complex way. By making the segment “telos of political action” the subject of the verbs συνέχῃ, ἄρχῃ and ἐπιστατῇ, Robin’s construction avoids the shocking contradiction that results from assigning “political action” to βασιλικὴ τέχνη, as other translators do by making it the main subject of the sentence. In Robin’s construction, the sentence reaffirms that it is the archontes composing the cloak weaved by politikê technê who are in charge of political activity, not the politikos himself (or more precisely, his politikê).77

5.6  C  oncluding Remarks: On Avoiding Confusions When Comparing the Republic and the Politicus Joining all these interpretative strands in a single, conclusive thread is now in order. Much confusion too often taints the parallels made between the Republic and the Politicus. Despite the same honorific royal title present in both works, the politikos

 I borrow Robin’s (1950) construction by offering a slightly modified English version of his translation. I will shortly explain why. 77  Note the presence, close by, of πρακτικῆς at 311a8, and ταῖς πράξεσι at 311b2 to describe the disposition of the courageous leaders. 76

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as genuine “king” is not to be confused with the Kallipolis’ guardians-in-chief in the Republic.78 A much more valid comparison would be to draw a parallel between the political weaver of the Politicus and the constitutional thinkers and legislative “founding father(s)” of the Republic (i.e. Socrates and his interlocutors, to whom we could add Socrates’ hoped for Ur-philosopher-king), and of the Laws (the Athenian Stranger as an informal advisor to Callias, one of the founding nomothetai of Magnesia). In the Politicus, what corresponds—or comes closest—to the class of the Kallipolis’ guardians (both guardians-in-chief and auxiliaries) is the cloak formed by the couples of bold and moderate archontes, in which the whole polis is protectively “wrapped.” There are certainly differences that I cannot explore at leisure here,79 but the protective fabric formed by leaders in the Politicus plays the same general function as the guardians-in-chief and their auxiliaries in the Republic: safeguarding.80 In fact, a more accurate way to put this—which would minimize or even eliminate the impact of differences on the value of the comparison—is to say that the Kallipolis’ guardian class is only one instantiation of the many types of protective “cloaks” that a politikos (worthy of that title) is responsible to weave,81 according to the Politicus.82 Will such protective cloaks comprise different sub-­ groups of individuals who receive different levels of education and play different roles? Will some have to be “philosophically” trained? This is not the type of question the Eleatic Stranger considers crucial in his enunciation of the most basic principles of politikê. What about women? Given the fact that, in the Politicus, coupling moderate men with bold women and moderate women with bold men is identified as one of the principles that a politikos ought to follow when designing his prescriptions concerning the weaving of the ruling class, I see no reason to deny that in both dialogues Plato acknowledges women’s potential to manage political communities. Will they be assigned responsibilities? If they are, which ones? How will the legislator then

 Contra Rowe (2018, p. 323): “the function of the philosopher-rulers is absorbed into the expert statesman, whether ruling himself or advising a ruler.” 79  Such as the reliance of the leaders on true opinion in the Politicus, and their possession of “knowledge,” in the Republic. 80  For Rowe (2018, p. 320), the elite class of the “courageous” and “moderate” “look very much like sub-divisions of the Republic’s guards, before these are divided into rulers (philosophers) and common-or-garden guards (the ‘auxiliaries’).” This is correct if we focus our attention on education, and their binding through true opinion, but if we consider their function, it seems to me that their executive and safeguarding role exceeds that of the auxiliaries of the Kallipolis and is closer to that of the guardians-in-chief. 81  We could imagine that, within the leading class, different types of safeguarding functions would be assigned to different people who reached different levels of education depending on their physical or intellectual abilities, as is the case in the Republic. But this is just one possibility. 82  See Rowe (2018, p.  310), who notes that “the reference here to ‘cities’ in the plural [i.e. at 311c3], no doubt reflects the fact that the theory of the Politicus is intended to apply not just to one imagined city but to cities in general, as they could and should be.” I find it less confusing to think of the end of the dialogue as a series of general prescriptions addressed to legislators without any reference to “the city of the Politicus” or “the best city Plato has in mind in the Politicus” (Rowe 2018, pp. 322–323). 78

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ensure that these are compatible with their maternal duties? This is for specific politikoi to determine in light of the situation and needs of their specific polis. What Plato never considers, however, as Le Doeuff rightly points out, is the possibility that women could be involved at the foundational stage of the institution of a polis. This is the level at which philosophy in the free and creative sense of the word is practiced, and this is also the level at which women are never present in Plato’s political dialogues. The philosophical exercise that consists in imagining an excellent polis and the conditions of its emergence takes place exclusively between men in the Republic, in the Laws, and in the Politicus. Could this explain, in part, why the Republic is still regarded as an indispensable “classic” in departments of political science throughout the Western world—a fact that should startle us given the democratic sensibilities of the present day? Allow me to quote Le Doeuff one last time, since her reflections on the question are well worth meditating on: In departments of political science or philosophy, wherever future governing elites are conditioned to believe that their primary task will be to maintain the social order and ensure that there is as little change as possible, few find fault with the basic schema of the Republic, which presupposes a hierarchy between a constitutive moment—the constitution of the Ideal City established with its main legislative activities in Piraeus—and a second moment when the City thus constituted is put into operation, but with the hope it will remain as it is. This is just how a number of countries today conceive of their political existence: in the past, there was a founding or constitutive event followed by legislation or government; it is still possible to introduce prudent amendments or modest revisions to the constitution but only if a fundamental stability is scrupulously preserved. Our contemporaries will not find it strange if, according to Plato, the constitutive moment was purely masculine while day-­ to-­day functioning admitted some women: that too is a present-day reality. (Le Doeuff 1998/2003, pp. 58–59)

So much for déshérence as exemplified by the Republic. As for the Politicus, it provides an excellent illustration of both facets of déshérence identified by Le Doeuff. Although I have not insisted as much on one of its two aspects—namely the rebranding of anything that reaches the realm of superior value as “male”—it is clearly present in the Politicus. The apparently unassuming, “feminine” activity of weaving, once it becomes a precious paradigm used to reimagine the constitutional activity, is cut from the female universe in which it was traditionally rooted and stripped of all attributes that could betray this origin. Not only is the political weaver portrayed as male, but, as others have noted, weaving as a “feminine” model is also subtly “neutralized” and repatriated to the domain of the conventionally “masculine.” Indeed, in the division of weaving, clothing is categorized as a defensive device, a depiction that brings this art close to the domain of the military, a terrain traditionally associated with male techniques and leadership (278c–280e and 288b).83 83  See Lane (1998, p. 169): “The forms of expertise identified in the course of that analysis—carpentry, building, joinery, and so on—are mainly ‘male’, unleavened by any especially ‘female’ ones. Weaving is even included in the class of ‘defences’ together with the quintessentially male art of armour-making. By grouping weaving alongside so many, and exclusively, non-female arts, the salience of the usual gender disparity is drastically reduced. In reorganising our cognitive map of expertise, the divisions reorder our understanding of their salient features, in this case making the conceptual role of weaving much more important than any female associations it might possess

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But more importantly, my demonstration aims to show that, while female guardians have not entirely disappeared in the Politicus, in light of what really matters to Plato as a philosopher we can see the real place they occupy: they are so discreet that they are hardly visible. For it is now clear that these virtuous women (and their male counterparts) play no role whatsoever in the foundation of the polis—and even more importantly, in the construction of the field of politics as divided into constitutional and executive spheres. Simply put, they are part of the constitutional toolkit elaborated by the politikos. Their raison d’être is to form a safeguarding cloak designed by the only individual truly worthy of the name “king”: the (male) political philosopher who pulls all the strings while never approaching the loom. Acknowledgments  I express my gratitude to Johanna Chalupiak who assisted me in reviewing this text and made several useful suggestions. Her help was invaluable. 

References Primary Sources Aristotle. (1998). Politics (C. D. C. Reeve, Trans.). Indianapolis: Hackett. Plato. (1950). Le politique (L. Robin, Trans.). In Platon. Oeuvres complètes, tome II. Gallimard. Plato. (1997a). Republic (G. M. A. Grube, Trans., revised by C. D. C. Reeve). In J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Eds.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 971–1223). Hackett. Plato. (1997b). Statesman (C. J. Rowe, Trans.). In J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Eds.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 294–358). Hackett. Xenophon. (1994). Oeconomicus (S. Pomeroy, Trans.). In S. Pomeroy, Xenophon “Oeconomicus”: A social and historical commentary (pp. 104–211). Clarendon Press.

Secondary Sources Annas, J. (1996). Plato’s Republic and feminism. In J. Ward (Ed.), Feminism and ancient philosophy. Routledge. Bluestone, N. (1987). Women and the ideal society. The University of Massachusetts Press. Bodéüs, R. (2004). Le véritable politique et ses vertus: Recueil d’études. Editions Peeters. Brandwood, L. (1976). A word index to Plato. W.S. Maney & Son Limited. Brisson, L., & Pradeau, J.-F. (2003). Platon: Le politique. GF Flammarion. Deslauriers, M. (2012). Women, education, and philosophy. In S.  James & S.  Dillon (Eds.), A companion to women in the ancient world. Wiley-Blackwell. Dixsaut, M. (1985). Le naturel philosophe: Essai sur les dialogues de Platon. Les Belles Lettres. Dixsaut, M., El Murr, D., Gavray, M.-A., Hasnaoui, A., Helmer, É., Larivée, A., de la Taille, A., & Teisserenc, F. (2018). Platon: Le politique. Vrin. El Murr, D. (2002). Le paradigme du tissage dans le Politique. Kairos, 19, 49–95.

outside this text. Such features of the text appear to function strategically to neutralize the feminised associations of weaving, making its gender a genuine absence rather than a presence to the extent possible.”

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Emre, M. (2018). The personality brokers: The strange history of Myers-Briggs and the birth of personality testing. Doubleday. Higgins, C. (2018, June 22). The age of patriarchy: How an unfashionable idea became a rallying cry for feminism today. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/ news/2018/jun/22/the-­age-­of-­patriarchy-­how-­an-­unfashionable-­idea-­became-­a-­rallying-­cry-­ for-­feminism-­today Hourcade, A. (2017). Le conseil dans la pensée antique: Les sophistes, Platon, Aristote. Hermann. Lane, M. (1995). A new angle on utopia: The political theory of the Statesman. In C.  Rowe (Ed.), Reading the Statesman: Proceedings of the III symposium Platonicum (pp. 275–305). Academia. Lane, M. (1998). Methods and politics in Plato’s Statesman. Cambridge University Press. Lane, M. (2013). Founding as legislating: The figure of the lawgiver in Plato’s Republic. In N.  Notomi & L.  Brisson (Eds.), Dialogues on Plato’s Politeia (Republic): Selected papers from the ninth symposium Platonicum (pp. 104–114). Academia. Larivée, A. (2012). “Gender trouble” in Xenophon and Plato. New England Classical Journal, 39(4), 281–303. Larivée, A. (2018). Taking frustration seriously: Reading Plato’s Statesman as a protreptic to political science. In B. Bossi & T. Robinson (Eds.), Plato’s Statesman revisited (pp. 11–34). De Gruyter. Le Doeuff, M. (2003). The sex of knowing (K. Hamer & L. Code, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1998). Márquez, X. (2012). A stranger’s knowledge: Statesmanship, philosophy and law in Plato’s Statesman. Parmenides Publishing. Michel, A. (1972). Sociologie de la famille et du mariage. Presses Universitaires de France. Morrison, D. R. (2007). The utopian character of Plato’s ideal city. In G. R. F. Ferrari (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press. Robinson, T. (2018). Plato’s stateswomen. In B. Bossi & T. Robinson (Eds.), Plato’s Statesman revisited (pp. 195–206). De Gruyter. Rowe, C. (1995). Plato: Statesman. Aris & Phillips Ltd.. Rowe, C. (2018). “Moderation” and courage in Plato’s Statesman (305e–311c). In B.  Bossi & T. Robinson (Eds.), Plato’s Statesman revisited (pp. 309–326). De Gruyter. Schofield, M. (1999). The disappearing philosopher-king. In M.  Schofield,  Saving the city: Philosopher-kings and other classical paradigms (pp. 28–45). Routledge. Sedley, D. (2007). Philosophy, the forms, and the art of ruling. In G.  R. F.  Ferrari (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge University Press. Skemp, J. B. (1952). The Statesman: A translation of the Politicus of Plato with introductory essay and commentary. Bristol Classical Press. Tuana, N. (Ed.). (1994). Feminist interpretations of Plato. The Pennsylvania State University Press. Weiss, R. (2012). Philosophers in the Republic: Plato’s two paradigms. Cornell University Press. Annie Larivée is associate professor and chair of the philosophy department at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She has a doctorate in the history of philosophy from Paris I PanthéonSorbonne and has published extensively on Plato and ancient philosophy. She is interested in the practice of the history of philosophy as genealogy, and the central themes guiding her research and teaching activity are philosophy as care for the self, as a way of life and as spiritual exercise. She is the co-author of a commented translation of Plato’s Statesman.  

Chapter 6

Women and Childrearing in the Republic Emily Fletcher

Abstract  Scholars have long puzzled about how to reconcile the proposal in Republic V that women should share the education and work of men, including ruling, with the deeply misogynistic comments found in the Republic and throughout Plato’s corpus. Even those who doubt that the proposal represents a sincere recognition of the women’s equality with men must provide a plausible explanation for this radical departure from the norms of Plato’s day. Taking inspiration from Annie Larivée’s application of Michèle Le Doeuff’s notion of déshérence to the Republic and the Politicus, I argue that a new appreciation of the importance of childrearing motivates the reimagination of women’s work in the Republic. On this reading, the transformation of childrearing from a private undertaking of mostly women to a shared responsibility of the city as a whole protects young children from moral corruption at the hands of uneducated and morally inferior mothers and nurses. Keywords  Plato · Republic · Women rulers · Mothers · Childrearing · Education · Misogyny · Politics

6.1  Introduction There is a puzzle about how to reconcile the proposal in Republic V that women should perform all the jobs in a city, including ruling, with the deeply misogynistic comments about the inferiority of women found throughout the Platonic corpus.1 1  Within the Republic, women are associated with vice or negative emotions at 388a, 469d, 605e, and they are grouped with children and considered as inferior at 431c and 557c. There are three passages where Socrates apparently forgets that the guardian class will include women (460a–b, 465a–b and 467), although he makes a point of reminding Glaucon of the existence of female rulers at the end of Book VII (540c). At the beginning of the Timaeus, Socrates recounts a speech he gave the previous day, which has a number of similarities with the account of the just city in the

E. Fletcher (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_6

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Larivée  (2021) draws on Michèle Le Doeuff’s notion of déshérence2 in order to understand the emergence of female leaders in the Republic, as well as their continued presence (she argues) in the Politicus.3 Larivée characterizes déshérence as follows: As applied to women’s history, déshérence reflects the antithetical connection between women and value. To put it simply: if something—any expertise, art, knowledge or function—is socially devalued, women may claim it; reversely, if something women already possess reveals itself as highly valuable, then they will sooner or later have to relinquish it (Sect. 5.1).4

Larivée argues that déshérence in its first form—in which women are offered something of low value—is present in the Republic. Borrowing from Le Doeuff (1998/2003), she proposes that the job of ruling in the ideal city of the Republic is not as attractive as it might initially seem. As Le Doeuff (p. 57) puts it, these philosopher rulers are “administrators rather than politicians.” The inclusion of women in this role masks the exclusion of women from the open-ended, creative task of describing a just city that Socrates undertakes with a group of all-male elites. Larivée goes on to apply the concept of déshérence in both of its forms to the Politicus. Inspired by Larivée’s application of the concept of déshérence to the Republic and the Politicus, I propose a different way in which we can see déshérence at work in the Republic, this time in the second of its two forms. Rather than arguing that ruling is assigned to women due to its relatively low status,5 I highlight that women

Republic. One is the assertion that women and men should do all the same jobs in the city (18c). The tension between this statement and other characterizations of women is even greater in the Timaeus. In his speech, Timaeus claims that the first generation of human beings were all male, and that women came to be as a second generation from “male-born humans who lived lives of cowardice or injustice (τῶν γενομένων ἀνδρῶν ὅσοι δειλοὶ καὶ τὸν βίον ἀδίκως διῆλθον)” (90e6–7, trans. 1997b; cf. 42b–d). Given this account of the origin of women, it is not obvious that even the best women would be suitable for the most important jobs in the city. See Harry and Polansky (2016) for a recent attempt to reconcile the derogatory comments about women in the Republic and the Timaeus with what they interpret as a sincere argument for women’s equality in Republic V. 2  Larivée leaves the term untranslated, but she notes that “used in a literal way, it is a legal term that refers to the situation of goods or funds unclaimed when their owner dies heirless” (Sect. 5.1). The 2003 translation of Le Doeuff’s book Le Sexe du Savoir renders it as “cast-offs.” 3  I follow Larivée in using the Latin name to refer to the dialogue, in order to avoid prejudicing the interpretation of the role of the politikos. In contrast with other interpreters, Larivée argues that the politikos is more of an adviser than a ruler, without any necessary practical role in managing the affairs of the city. 4  A similar idea is present in other feminist writings. For example, philosopher Sandra Harding (1992, p. 443) attributes the following to sociologist Dorothy Smith: “For example, she points out that if we start thinking from women’s lives, we (anyone) can see that women are assigned the work that men do not want to do for themselves, especially the care of everyone’s bodies—the bodies of men, of babies and children, of old people, of the sick, and of their own bodies.” 5  However, my argument is compatible with this view. Both forms of déshérence may work together to explain Socrates’ proposal concerning the education and work of women in Republic V.

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also have a job taken away from them, one that acquires supreme importance in the context of founding and maintaining the just city: the rearing of children. Seeing what women lose under the radical social policies proposed in Republic V, in addition to what they gain, provides a novel way of explaining the seemingly progressive stance towards women’s nature and work. Instead of elevating the status of women, we can understand Plato to be elevating the status of childrearing, a job traditionally assigned almost exclusively to women.6

6.2  Women and Childrearing Childrearing (trophê)7 acquires high value in the Republic. The program of early education that Socrates sets out in Books II–III is essential to the realization and maintenance of the just city. In Book IV, Socrates declines to provide a detailed account of the social arrangement and laws of the just city, although he mentions offhand that members of the guardian class will possess wives and children in common (423e–424a). Socrates claims that the guardians themselves will come up with the correct social policies, as long as “they guard the one great thing (ἓν μέγα φυλάττωσι),” which he identifies as “education and upbringing (παιδείαν…καὶ τροφήν)” (423e1 and e4, trans. 1997a). Here, Socrates closely associates paideia and trophê, identifying their conjunction as the one thing that is most important for the city’s success. According to Socrates, good early education produces people with good natures, people with good natures produce better offspring, and these offspring become even better when well-educated (424a4–b1).8 It is in this context that Socrates first mentions that in the ideal city, wives and children will be 6  Childrearing remains feminine-coded to this day. Cf. Calhoun (2004, p. 5): “The socialization and education of children, most of human emotionality, and the maintenance of many personal and communal relationships are coded feminine. By comparison to masculine-coded activities and capacities (e. g. combat, competitive games, the making of contractual agreements, rational decision making, and the pursuit of individual preferences), such feminine-coded activities and capacities have largely been ignored in moral philosophy.” Plato is an exception to the general neglect of the socialization and education of children within moral philosophy; however, it is telling that in assigning it more importance, he recasts childrearing as a public activity of the highest importance, rather than a private activity associated with women. 7  In some contexts, Plato uses trophê to refer to food, rather than the task of raising young children (e.g. the first occurrence of trophê in the Republic at 369d1). At other times, Plato seems to use trophê and paideia (“education”) interchangeably (e.g. in Books III and IV the two words occur in conjunction seven times). However, when they are contrasted with one another, as at Republic V 450c, trophê refers specifically to the period of time between birth and the beginning of paideia, whereas paideia refers to formal education, such as the training in music and gymnastics described from Book II 403c to Book III 412b. In the Politicus, trophê is the object of a large branch of knowledge devoted to the rearing of animals, whether human or non-human (261d ff.). 8  Socrates here foreshadows the state-run eugenics program described in Book V. It is striking that Socrates views a person’s “nature” as the result of both breeding and education. See Gardner (2000, pp. 224–225) for an excellent discussion of this point.

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possessed in common (423e6–424a2). It is not immediately clear what connection this policy bears to the education of guardians; it appears to be simply an example of a social arrangement that well-educated guardians, whom he refers to as “reasonable men (μέτριοι ἄνδρες)” (423e5), would agree to. At the beginning of Book V, Adeimantus asks to hear more about Socrates’ remark that the guardians will possess wives and children in common. Glaucon repeats this request, with an addition: Tell us at length what your thoughts are on the topic we inquired about, namely, what the common possession of wives and children will amount to for the guardians and how the children will be brought up while they’re still small (τροφῆς νέων ἔτι ὄντων), for the time between birth and the beginning of education seems to be the most difficult period of all (ἣ δὴ ἐπιπονωτάτη). (450b8–c4, trans. 1997a, my emphasis)9

Seemingly out of nowhere, Glaucon asks about trophê, which here refers to the rearing of children between birth and the beginning of formal education (paideia). By default, responsibility for this early period of a child’s life falls to their parents, and it is a period in which mothers have an especially powerful influence. It might appear that Socrates does not address the care of young children in his response to Adeimantus and Glaucon. However, the proposal that women should share the education and work of men transforms childrearing from a woman’s individual responsibility into a shared responsibility of the city as a whole. The goal of safeguarding the trophê of young children provides an alternative explanation for Socrates’ apparently progressive stance on women’s work, one that reinforces, rather than conflicts with, Socrates’ assertions that women are inferior, especially morally inferior, to men. Adeimantus himself asked neither about trophê nor about the role of women in particular in the city, except to inquire about how wives are to be shared among the assumed-to-be-male guardians. Instead, Socrates’ first proposal about women’s work and education responds to Glaucon’s question about trophê, and on the surface he turns to discuss the “birth and rearing (τὴν γένεσιν καὶ τροφήν)” (451d1) of women, because he has already discussed the education of men (451c4–d2).10 He relies heavily on the comparison between guardians and sheep dogs, who protect the flock, in order to argue that women and men should do all jobs in common. He observes that female dogs do not stay at home “in order to bear and rear the puppies (διὰ τὸν τῶν σκυλάκων τόκον τε καὶ τροφήν)” (451d), but instead, they guard, hunt, and do everything else with the male dogs (451d–e). Socrates concludes that women must have the same upbringing and education (τὴν αὐτὴν τροφήν τε καὶ  Cf. 377a–b, where Socrates notes that children are especially malleable when young.  There is some slippage in the way Socrates characterizes the target of his first proposal. For example, at 453d, Socrates reports that he was hesitant to address “the possession and upbringing of women and children (περὶ τὴν τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ παίδων κτῆσιν καὶ τροφήν)” (453d2–3). Here, he merges the goal of the first proposal with that of the second, where he argues that guardians will possess wives and children in common. It is this second proposal that Adeimantus initially asked Socrates to explain and defend, which has nothing to do with the education or work of women. I agree with Gardner (2000), contra Annas (1996), that Socrates’ first two proposals in Book V are closely linked. 9

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παιδείαν, 451e4) as men, in order to perform the same jobs. In arguing that women should do the same jobs as men, he also implicitly rejects their exclusive claim to the job of raising children. However, Socrates does not get far into his account of the rearing of women before he is confronted with the traditional view that women are responsible for childrearing. He does not deny that women and men have different natures, but says these differences do not by themselves justify assigning them different jobs in the city (454b–455d). He argues that they must only consider natural differences that are “relevant to the particular ways of life themselves (τὸ πρὸς αὐτὰ τεῖνον τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα)” (454d1). Glaucon and Socrates ultimately agree that there is the same variety and distribution of natures among men and women, although men are much superior (πολὺ κρατεῖται) to women in almost everything (455d),11 with the possible exceptions of weaving, baking cakes, and cooking vegetables (455c6–7).12 One effect of distributing all the jobs in the city to women as well as men is that it creates a hierarchy among women, who can have better or worse natures. Just as the guardians are the best of the citizens, female guardians are the best of the women (457d–e).13 It may seem unnecessary for Socrates to assign all the jobs in the city to women, including fighting and ruling, simply in order to diminish their role in childrearing. However, this differentiation among female natures turns out to be important for the state-run eugenics Socrates introduces next, which requires identifying the women who have the best natures, in order to produce the best offspring (459d– e).14 Recall that on Socrates’ view, good natures are the result of both breeding and education (424a4–b1). This provides a clear rationale for educating women: improving the breeding stock for guardian men. If the true motivation for educating women is to improve their natures for breeding purposes, then why does Socrates also assign new jobs to women, such as fighting and ruling? Socrates has argued consistently that every individual in the city should do the work best suited to their nature, and this principle applies to women as well as to men. The priorities of this breeding policy are nonetheless clear; in addition to producing the highest quality offspring,

 It is not clear how we should understand this claim. It cannot be meant as a universal claim that every man is superior to every woman at any given job, because female rulers are presumably better at ruling than men who are by nature suited to carpentry or farming. Is the point that the best man will be superior to the best women, which would allow that some individual women are better than most men? Or is it that the average man is superior to the average woman? The way I interpret the claim is that for any given job, the men who are by nature suited to that job are typically, if not always, better at it than the women who are also by nature suited to it. 12  This is not to deny that there are men who are by nature suited to weaving and cooking; the suggestion is simply that for a handful of jobs, women may be superior to men. Notice that childrearing is not among the candidates for such jobs. Socrates and Glaucon ultimately agree that there are no jobs in the city that are by nature the exclusive province of either men or women. 13  Socrates does not refer to the women as “citizens (πολίται).” 14  “It follows from our previous agreements, first, that the best men must have sex with the best women as frequently as possible, while the opposite is true of the most inferior men and women, and, second, that if our herd is to be of the highest possible quality, the former’s offspring must be reared and not the latter’s” (trans. 1997a). 11

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the rulers will aim to maintain “the same number of men (τὸν αὐτὸν ἀριθμὸν τῶν ἀνδρῶν)” (460a3–4, my emphasis).15 Despite arguing that women and men will share the same education and work, Socrates makes it clear that women are subordinate to men.16 Socrates describes female guardians as the “common possession (κοινωνία)”17 of male guardians, and he treats this policy as continuous with the common possession of houses and other property among the guardian class (464b). Sex with women will also be a prize for men who are good in war or other things (460b and 468b–c). There is an obvious asymmetry in the positions of women and men in the social arrangement Socrates envisions here, even if we do not take him to be asserting that women are the literal property of men.18 What effect do Socrates’ proposals have on childrearing? When children are born, “they’ll be taken over by the officials appointed for the purpose (αἱ ἐπὶ τούτων ἐφεστηκυῖαι ἀρχαί), who may be either men or women or both, since our offices are open to both sexes” (460b, trans. 1997a). It is remarkable that there even exist special officials (ἀρχαί) in charge of childrearing, let alone that men will hold these offices, as well as women. In fact, from what Socrates has said, we should expect men to outperform women in in overseeing childrearing, as in most other jobs.19 Most people assume that the radical idea concerning gender roles in Republic V is that women should be philosophers and rule alongside men, but as Le Doeuff (1998/2003, p. 52) and Larivée (2021, Sect. 5.3.1) show, there are clear precedents in Plato’s time for female philosophers and political leaders.20 By contrast, I am

 Thus, I disagree with Sedley (2005, p. 207) that in assigning women to all the jobs in the city, Plato “is driven by his determination that the city should not waste any of the talent available to it.” Cf. Annas (1996, pp. 315–316). I do not see strong evidence for this motivation in the text, especially considering that Socrates and Glaucon take it as uncontroversial that men will be better than women at pretty much everything (455d). In my view, Plato is instead driven by concerns about the quality of childrearing and the requirements of the eugenics program. 16  Socrates later associates “the legal equality of men and women and freedom in the relations between them (ἐν γυναιξὶ δὲ πρὸς ἄνδρας καὶ ἀνδράσι πρὸς γυναῖκας ὅση ἡ ἰσονομία καὶ ἐλευθερία γίγνεται)” (563b7–8, trans. 1997a) with democracy, the second to worst political constitution, better only than tyranny. 17  E.g. 449c8, 459c1, 461e5 and seven other times from 462 to 466. Socrates introduces this policy as an application of the proverb that “friends possess things in common (κοινὰ τὰ φίλων ἔσται)” (499c5). According to Socrates’ policy, “things” includes women, while “friends” does not. 18  Pomeroy (1974) defends this view. See Annas (1996) and Vlastos (1989/1995) for criticism. 19  It should be noted that Plato seems to envision male guardians as playing an oversight or management role in childrearing. Socrates comments later that “the care of sleepless children and all other troublesome duties will be taken over by the wet nurses and other attendants (ἀγρυπνίας δὲ καὶ τὸν ἄλλον πόνον τίτθαις τε καὶ τροφοῖς παραδώσουσιν)” (460d4–5, trans. 1997a). Apparently, the thought of the best men in the city consoling sleepless children was beyond even Plato’s radical political imagination. 20  For examples of female philosophers, Le Doeuff (1998/2003, p. 51) mentions Eumetis, female Pythagoreans, and just one generation after Socrates, Hipparchia. As for female political leaders, Larivée cites the example of Spartan women, discussed by Aristotle at Politics, 1269b18–1270a5. 15

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unaware of any historical or literary precedent for the idea of male childcare-­ workers; this may be Plato’s truly radical gender policy.21 At multiple points in the Republic, both before and after Book V, Socrates emphasizes the negative influence mothers have on young children. In Book II, as Socrates transitions to the topic of the education of the guardians, he says that the beginning of education is especially important, because children are especially malleable (μάλιστα γὰρ δὴ τότε πλάττεται) when young (377a12–b3). He launches into a long discourse about various ways in which they must supervise the “producers of stories (τοῖς μυθοποιοῖς)” (377b11), strictly controlling the content of their stories (377d–403c). He also says they must “persuade nurses and mothers (τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας) to tell their children the [stories] we have selected, since they will shape their children’s souls with stories much more than they shape their bodies by handling them (καὶ πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τοῖς μύθοις πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσίν)” (377c2–4, trans. 1997a). While poets produce harmful stories about gods and heroes, nurses and mothers are the ones who shape their young children’s souls with these stories. There is additional evidence from Book VIII that Plato thought that mothers had a corrupting influence on their children. The degeneration of the best city into a timocracy results from a mathematical mistake in the eugenics program the rulers have instituted (546a–547a), but the timocratic individual comes to be as a result of the negative influence of his mother (549c–550b). While fathers and other male societal influences play a role in corrupting the oligarchic, democratic, and tyrannical individuals, it is noteworthy that the first step in Socrates’ story of the moral corruption of individuals traces back to a bad mother. The timocrat is the son of a good father (549c), who “nourishes the rational part of his soul and makes it grow (τοῦ μὲν πατρὸς αὐτοῦ τὸ λογιστικὸν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ ἄρδοντός τε καὶ αὔξοντος)” (550b1–2, trans. 1997a); however, he has a “complaining (ἀχθομένης)” (549c8 and d6) mother who “tells her son that his father is unmanly, too easy-going, and all the other things that women repeat over and over again in such cases (λεγούσης ὡς ἄνανδρός τε αὐτῷ ὁ πατὴρ καὶ λίαν ἀνειμένος, καὶ ἄλλα δὴ ὅσα καὶ οἷα φιλοῦσιν αἱ γυναῖκες περὶ τῶν τοιούτων ὑμνεῖν)” (549d6–e4, trans. 1997a). These passages further support my suggestion that in Book V, rather than liberating women from the demands of childrearing, Socrates is freeing children from the negative influence of their mothers.

 The fact that a shepherd is a male-coded care-worker may explain why Plato uses shepherding as a model for ruling in the Republic (e.g. 345b–c). Cf. the identification of the politikê as “the expertise of human-herding (τῆς ἀνθρωπονομικῆς […] τέχνης)” (266e8) in the Politicus. Due to space constraints, I will not be able to develop this suggestion here.

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6.3  Conclusion I have argued that we can understand the radical social policies of Republic V as at least partly explained by the second aspect of Le Doeuff’s concept of déshérence: that any job or function that “reveals itself as highly valuable” is taken away from women. In the Republic, childrearing is simply too crucial for the flourishing of the city to entrust to women. As soon as Plato recognizes its importance, he is suddenly able to imagine radical social reforms, including male participation in, and public oversight of, a traditionally feminine-coded role.

References Primary Sources Plato. (1997a). Republic (G. M. A. Grube, Trans., revised by C. D. C. Reeve). In J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Eds.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 971–1223). Hackett. Plato. (1997b). Timaeus (D. J. Zeyl, Trans.). In J. M. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson (Eds.), Plato: Complete works (pp. 1224–1291). Hackett.

Secondary Sources Annas, J. (1996). Plato’s Republic and feminism. In J. K. Ward (Ed.), Feminism and ancient philosophy (pp. 3–12). Routledge. Calhoun, C. (2004). Setting the moral compass: Essays by women philosophers. Oxford University Press. Gardner, C. (2000). The remnants of the family: The role of women and eugenics in Republic V. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 17(3), 217–235. Harding, S. (1992). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is “strong objectivity”? The Centennial Review, 36(3), 437–470. Harry, C., & Polansky, R. (2016). Plato on women’s natural ability: Revisiting Republic V and Timaeus 41e3–44d2 and 86b1–92c3. Apeiron, 49(3), 261–280. Larivée, A. (2021). What happened to the philosopher queens? On the “disappearance” of female rulers in Plato’s Statesman. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Le Doeuff, M. (2003). The sex of knowing (K. Hamer & L. Code, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1998). Pomeroy, S. (1974). Feminism in book V of Plato’s Republic. Apeiron, 8(1), 33–35. Sedley, D. (2005). Plato’s tsunami. Hyperboreus, Studia Classica, 11, 207–214. Vlastos, G. (1995). Was Plato a feminist? In D. Graham (Ed.), Studies in Greek philosophy (Vol. 2, pp. 133–143). Princeton University Press. (Reprinted from Times Literary Supplement, 276 & 288–289, March 17, 1989).

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Emily Fletcher  is an associate professor and Mellon Chair in ancient Greek philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests lie primarily in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, especially ethics and moral psychology. She has published a number of articles about pleasure, human nature, and the good life in two of Plato’s late dialogues, the Philebus and the Timaeus. Her teaching interests extend beyond the history of philosophy into contemporary ethics and feminist philosophy.

Part IV

Lucretius on Women’s Sexuality

Chapter 7

Sexual Freedom and Feminine Pleasure in Lucretius Julie Giovacchini

Abstract  From Book IV of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, we most often retain the severe criticism of the amorous feeling and the “traps of Venus.” However, two original aspects of the Lucretian denunciation of love, which I propose to study, are overlooked: on the one hand, the eulogy of the vagrant Venus, the volgivaga vagus Venere of verse 1071, an image of sexual infidelity that has become a philosophical virtue; on the other hand, the study of feminine pleasure—Lucretius acknowledges and values feminine jouissance in his description of the physiology of heterosexual coitus. Bearing in mind that Epicurean ethics identifies voluptas with telos or Sovereign Good, it is particularly interesting to note that these two elements actually propose the outline of a specific sexual ethos, characterized by two structuring elements: diversity and reciprocity. I will thus propose a global perspective on this question of sexuality within Epicurean thought, highlighting the particularities resulting from the Epicureans’ consideration of the feminine dimension and its ambivalence. Keywords  Lucretius · Epicureanism · Sexuality · Venus · Pleasure · Feminine pleasure

J. Giovacchini (*) Centre Jean Pépin (CNRS—École Normale Supérieure—PSL), Villejuif, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_7

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7.1  Introduction: The Erotic Threat of Lucretius’s Woman In his 380 s translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Chronica, Hieronymus of Strido casts his gaze back to year 94 BCE as he offers the following anecdote, which will go on to bear untold fruit1: The poet Titus Lucretius was born. Driven mad by a love potion, in his moments of lucidity, he wrote a number of books which were later corrected by Cicero. He committed suicide during his forty-fourth year.2

Fuel for the imagination of Lucretius’s humanist commentators, the romantic hypothesis has served as the basis for a host of charming narratives. Take, for example, Pomponio Leto’s Lucretii Vitae. Reproduced at the start of the 1486 edition of Fridenperger’s De Rerum Natura,3 Leto’s account incorporates a slight variation of Hieronymus’s tale: though the supposed cause of Lucretius’s mania is still a love potion, his love affair now involves a very handsome young man by the name of Asterion. Girolamo Borgia, a pupil of Giovanni Pontano who transcribed his own philological notes in the margins of a 1495 edition of the text, has also written a biographical notice with a similar episode.4 The text, titled Vita Borgiana and deemed by John Masson (1895, pp. 220–237) to be a commentary on Suetonius’s lost Vita Lucretii, also evokes a wicked woman directly responsible for the poet’s death by poison.5 The woman is finally named in 1511 in Giovanni Battista Pio’s pioneering and exhaustive commentary on De Rerum Natura, a contribution that will be influential on how Lucretius is regarded in modern times: Others [say] that he was taken to his death by a fit of madness due to Lucilia, his wife or lover, who had imprudently poured him a love potion, although she, who loved him, wanted neither his death nor his loss of reason. (Chron. [96] 94 a.C.)6

Whether true or false, the story provides very interesting insight into the ways in which medieval commentators and editors perceived female sexuality—or, more accurately, how these individuals regarded Lucretius’s treatment of the issue, which can be summarized as follows: women are dangerous; sexuality is dangerous;  All translations of the Greek or Latin texts cited in this article are mine.  “T. Lucretius poeta nascitur. Postea amatorio poculo in furorem versus, cum aliquot libros per intervalla insaniae conscripsisset, quos postea Cicero emendavit, propria se manu interfecit anno aetatis quadragesimo quarto.” 3  Today preserved in the Universiteisbibliothek of Utrecht (Litt. Lat. X). 4  Today preserved in the British Library with the shelfmark IA.23564. 5  As Masson (1895) says, there is no reason to systematically question these texts wholesale: there is embellishment and historical dramatization, but against a backdrop he considers plausible. Nevertheless, whatever the likelihood these episodes truly occurred, their transmission sheds light on how erotic questions raised by the Lucretian poem were received. 6  “alii furore percitum, in quem Lucilia, sive uxor sive amica, amatorio poculo porrecto, eum imprudens adegerat, cum ab eo amari, non ei necem inferre, aut bonam mentem adimere, vellet.” 1 2

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sexuality, love and madness are deeply entwined (even if this entwinement is the product of a magical concoction).

That these distinct elements reappear in every ancient commentary on the Lucretian text is not only a feature of misogyny and base prudishness; their presence also seems to tally with the general Epicurean context, and fit neatly with what is typically said about the general framework of Epicurean ethics and their specific and complex (if quite negative) treatment of aphrodisia or erotica. This paper will focus on that treatment as it digs into the place of the three above-­ noted assumptions in ancient and medieval commentaries of Lucretius. Are they consistent with readings of Epicurean texts? What can be said about female sexuality in Epicurean ethics in general? What does this mean for general anthropological conceptions in Epicurean philosophy?

7.2  Sexuality as an Ambivalent Figure of Ethos 7.2.1  The Calculation of Desire Epicureanism is based on the prescription of an economy of desires and pleasures. This is necessarily grounded in a rational calculation that seeks to determine which desires will create the conditions required for the experience of true pleasure, and which desires can be eliminated—discarded as false, even dangerous. The Epicurean practical philosophy is structured around the hairesis/phugê, choice/rejection dichotomy. This distinguishes types of actions which are ordered according to a second dichotomy of affect motivating the action: pleasure/pain. What we call desire is therefore the movement of the psycho-corporal complex (a summation of the soul and the body) towards the choice or rejection of a reality on the basis of the pleasure or pain expected as a result.7 This movement of desire is itself a product of mental images which emanate from a feeling or affection in the body (in a radical empirical philosophy such as Epicureanism, all knowledge comes from sensation and all sensation is true).8 Judgment will associate those same representations with connotations, projections, expectations. It is from this reason-driven addition that the possibility of error arises. Insofar as desire is not the product of a “pure” sensation but of the association of a representation with a sensation, there exists the possibility of false desires or, to use a specifically Epicurean term, empty desires—that is, desires constructed from illusory, false representations which are not based on a solid reality.9 Two main categories of desires exist in Epicurean ethics, namely, natural and non-natural. Among natural desires, we are presented with two sub-categories:  Cf. Morel (2013, pp. 249–274).  Cf. Giovacchini (2012, pp. 21–40). 9  Cf. Mitsis (2014, pp. 59–80). 7 8

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necessary and unnecessary. This division is clearly articulated in Epicurus’s Ratae Sententiae 29 and 30 (though perhaps more so in the scholium than in the primary text): Among the desires are those that are natural and  not necessary, and those that are neither natural nor necessary but arise from an empty opinion. (RS 29)10 Epicurus considers natural and necessary those desires [for things that] relieve pain, such as drinking when you are thirsty; natural and unnecessary desires are those that add to pleasure without removing pain, such as various foods; and neither natural nor necessary is the desire for power and statues in its honour. (Scholium ad RS 29)11 As for natural desires, those that do not cause pain when they are not satisfied, even if ardently pursued, also come from an empty opinion; and if they assert themselves it is not because of their intrinsic nature, but because of human blindness. (RS 30)12

While these assorted distinctions are well-documented in Greek Epicureanism, in Lucretius they are not particularly formalized. The subject of ethics, if not secondary, is at least second among the various foci of De Rerum Natura, which in any case concerns itself explicitly with physics and recalls Epicurus’s Letter to Herodotus in its conception. There is very little mention of pleasure (though Cicero makes it the starting point in De Finibus I and a central feature of Epicureanism). Lucretius, for his part, substantially develops the anti-religious elements of Epicurean ethics, which is to say those concerning the fear of death, but expands very little on the hairesis/phugê dichotomy. One notable exception comes at the end of Book IV, which deals precisely with love and sexuality—i.e. in reality the most explicitly problematic case of pleasure. Explicit allusions to sexuality are absent from sententiae 29 and 30. Yet modern commentators quite naturally see these as references to sexual pleasure, and this is almost certainly due to the fact that the Lucretian account is projected onto Epicurus’s text. The text of De Rerum Natura’s Book IV seems to square so perfectly with sententia 30 that the sexual reference in the sentence is almost obligatory. An exegetical debate proceeds about how to move sexual desire from the first category (i.e. natural and necessary) to the second (natural and unnecessary). Certain interpretations emphasize the fact that these desires are based on empty opinions. Others reason they lack natural limits. For instance, Nussbaum (1994, p. 113) places sexual desire in the category by Epicurus as natural and unnecessary  Τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν αἱ μἐν εἰσι φυσικαὶ καὶ  οὐκ ἀναγκαῖαι, αἱ δὲ οὔτε φυσικαὶ οὔτε ἀναγκαῖαι, ἀλλὰ παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν γινόμεναι. 11  φυσικὰς καὶ ἀναγκαίας ἡγεῖται ὁ Ἐπίκουρος τὰς ἀλγηδόνος ἀπολυούσας, ὡς ποτὸν ἐπὶ δίψους· φυσικὰς δὲ οὐκ ἀναγκαίας δὲ τὰς ποικιλλούσας μόνον τὴν ἡδονήν, μὴ ὑπεξαιρουμένας δὲ τὸν ἄλγημα, ὡς πολυτελῆ σιτία· οὔτε δὲ φυσικὰς οὔτε ἀναγκαίας, ὡς στεφάνους καὶ ἀνδριάντων ἀναθέσεις. 12  Ἐν αἷς τῶν φυσικῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν μὴ ἐπ᾿ ἀλγοῦν δὲ ἐπαναγουσῶν ἐὰν μὴ συντελεσθῶσιν, ὑπάρχει ἡ σπουδὴ σύντονος, παρὰ κενὴν δόξαν αὗται γίνονται, καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ἑαυτῶν φύσιν οὐ διαχέονται ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου κενοδοξίαν. 10

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because it is based on an empty opinion. To Nussbaum, such desires fall more readily into the category described in sententia 30, i.e. those whose failed fulfilment does not cause real pain (only belief in the necessity of a desire causes pain, not the desire itself); as such, these must be distinguished from empty, unnatural desires. Sexual desire is empty in the sense that it does not entail a need for its fulfilment; it remains natural insofar as it has the potential to be satisfied. For his part, Konstan (2008, pp. 70–72) includes what he calls “erotic” desire in the category of empty desires because it is unlimited and, in this sense, not “necessary”; Konstan’s argument rests on a comparison between erotic desire and thirst. Erotic desire that feeds exclusively on simulacra and not true representations13 is analogous to natural and necessary desire; the former mimics the latter, but in reality the former is empty because there is nothing that can satisfy it.14 Konstan clearly explains that the desire he calls erotic proceeds like any desire from a sensation linked to representations of what is likely to satisfy it: a glass of water for thirst, a beautiful person for loving desire. Konstan hypothesizes that in the second case the representation is an empty simulacrum: a mental image to which reality cannot be matched. The physical sensation of love and the lack of the loved one is real; what is unreal and therefore illusory is to tether the pain of the loving sensation to the hypothesis that we can relieve that pain through possession of another. The trap arises from the similarity of the two mechanisms, which leads to the confrontation of a necessary desire (drinking) with an unnecessary one (making love). The question is quite seriously complicated when we place these distinct hypotheses alongside another Epicurean text attributed to Metrodorus, Sent. Vat. 51.15 In it, Metrodorus explicitly addresses sexual pleasure but does so by putting it, apparently, in a third category, reckoning that such pleasure is not only unnecessary but also, and especially, inherently dangerous: You tell me that you have an excessive appetite for the bonds of Aphrodite: for what concerns you—if you do not overthrow the laws, if you do not offend morals, if you do not afflict one of your relatives, if you do not exhaust your flesh and if you do not sacrifice vital needs—exercise your inclination as you wish. It is however impossible that this does not happen, and at least one of these disadvantages must happen to you. Aphrodisia are never profitable, so it is a good thing if you get away with it.16

 “It is not that certain simulacra arouse limitless desire; rather, desires are limitless when they feed on simulacra” (Konstan 2008, p. 70). 14  “These vain desires are extrapolations upon or analogous to real needs, but rest, in some way, upon a false opinion” (Konstan 2008, p. 72). 15  I am not commenting here on the attribution of certain maxims, including this one, to Metrodorus, insofar as Metrodorus’s orthodoxy in relation to the main positions of the founder of the Garden is well established. See Tepedino Guerra (2000). 16  Πύνθανομαι σου τὴν κατὰ σάρκα κίνησιν ἀφθονώτερον διακεῖσθαι πρὸς τὴν ἀφροδισίων ἔντευξιν. Σὺ δὲ ὅταν μήτε τοὺς νόμους καταλύῃς μήτε τὰ καλῶς ἔθει κείμενα κινῇς μήτε τῶν πλησίον τινὰ λυπῇς μήτε τὴν σάρκα καταξαίνῃς μήτε τὰ ἀναγκαῖα καταναλίσκῃς, χρῶ ὡς βούλει τῇ σεαυτοῦ προαιρέσει. Ἀμήχανον μέντοι γε τὸ μὴ οὐχ· ἑνί γέ τινι τούτων συνέχεσθαι· ἀφροδίσια γὰρ οὐδέποτε ὤνησεν, ἀγαπητὸν δὲ εἰ μὴ ἔβλαψεν. 13

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Metrodorus appears initially to be arguing that sexual desire triggers a dilemma that rational calculation might solve—namely, by seizing on disdain for future suffering to diminish the pain of present longing: if abstinence is a source of pain, sexuality leads to an even more painful path; between two evils one must then choose the lesser and refrain from sex. The implication is that sententia 51 links sex not only to desires whose non-fulfilment does not cause pain (and which are therefore to some extent indifferent in terms of their satisfaction), but also to unnatural desires, whose satisfaction is always problematic to a greater or lesser degree. Aside from seemingly invalidating Nussbaum’s interpretation, this forces us to accept something which, conceptually, is exceedingly difficult: that sexual desire is unnatural. In reality, all of these accounts must contend with the same difficulty: if we limit ourselves to the strict Epicurean corpus it is impossible to determine what we are talking about and, in particular, if we are talking about the same thing every time. Is what Konstan calls with ambiguity “erotic desire” purely sexual? Is it a loving or emotional desire? In any case, is it enabled by something other than, as his interpretation appears to suggest, mere physical hormonal tension? And do the two types of desires have identical status for Epicureans? Sententia 51 is highly ambiguous on this point. In Greek, the notion of aphrodisia embraces the same ambiguity as our eroticism, by referring not only to coitus but to the whole apparatus—aesthetic or pornographic, but in any case, cultural and sophisticated—that accompanies it and accounts for its flavour.17 Nussbaum relies on another significant quotation, from Hermias’s commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus (fr. 483 Usener). Hermias relates Epicurus’s definition of eros as “an intense desire for union accompanied by suffering and distraction.”18 This definition bundles all the difficulties together, associating terms referring to sex (aphrodisia) and passionate desire (eros) by tethering them to descriptions of behaviours that can be found in a loving state as well as a pathological libidinous state. What then can we establish with certainty from these Greek Epicurean accounts? Epicurus warns against a certain type of eros, and firm conclusions in this regard are tricky—is he referring to sexual eros alone or erotic eros in the broad sense? We may be tempted to situate this ill-defined desire closer to the natural and unnecessary, but nothing in Epicurus’s own texts compels us to do so; there is actually no grounds to sustain the claim that Epicurus singled out sex over other pleasures: it is neither absolutely honoured nor absolutely refused.

17  See for example the synthetic explanations of Boehringer (2005) about the difficulty in understanding without anachronisms the reality of ancient sexuality. See also Pirenne-Delforge (1994, pp. 376–377) about the polysemy of aphrodisia. 18  Σύντονον ὄρεξιν ἀφροδισίων μετὰ οἴστρου καὶ ἀδημονίας.

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7.2.2  Rejection of Sex or Rejection of Eros? Let us first consider the purely sexual meaning of eros, if indeed this desire exists at all. In what way would Epicurus warn against sexual desire? Certainly not in the sense of an “inherently bad” desire. If that were the case, the message would be extremely questionable. The pain or discomfort caused by sexual tension can actually be relieved by the sexual act with or without another body. Above all, Epicurus would arrive at this point in flagrant and unnecessary contradiction with Lucretius, which should only be attempted by commentators in desperate times and with the utmost caution.19 Lucretius walks a remarkably unambiguous path as regards sexual eros, which values and defends itself by contrast and opposition to emotional eros (Brown 1987, pp. 62–67 and 108–110). In De Rerum Natura, sex is good and useful for the general telos when not infected by the passion for love that so distorts it. As Nussbaum explains very well (2002, p. 75), in Lucretius, unlike under the Platonic scheme, it is amorous crystallization that deviates from truth and goodness and triggers madness.20 This position is wholly compatible with Epicurus’s in the texts we have just reviewed. Indeed, bearing in mind that Epicurus urges caution with eros on the grounds that it differs from pure sexual relief, the texts take on a meaning that is both structured and coherent: in this sense it is a particular case of natural desire we must be wary of, for the natural and harmless use of sex can be easily diverted and deformed. In this regard, there is an obvious similarity between sexual desire and the desire for wealth, another source of considerable misunderstanding in the exegesis of Epicurean texts; in Philodemus of Gadara’s Economics for example, we are told that without money, in poverty, one is miserable—hence the wise must manage their goods sensibly: Certainly, we shall not avoid all things whose presence can cause kinds of trouble, worry and torment, as we have said before. And some deserve to be welcomed—including  The question of the inconsistency of the Lucretian text has been very deeply worked on in recent years, both from an internalist point of view (is the De Rerum Natura text consistent from Book I to Book VI?) and an externalist one (is Lucretius a good Epicurean student?). I do not intend to revisit this issue here, which was in my opinion perfectly addressed by Gale (1994, 1996) and O’Hara (2006). If Sedley’s (1998) thesis of a Lucretian fundamentalism can no longer really be assumed today, it nevertheless seems to me that we can begin by validating the hypothesis of a philosophical sincerity of Lucretius, which in this respect places coherence at the very least as a prescriptive idea, even if it is not absolutely implemented. The paths opened by Gale (1994, 1996) and O’Hara (2006, ch. 3) regarding the rhetorical function of incoherence, or the possible failures of the Lucretian project in the details of such a texte-monde, are extremely fruitful. Nevertheless, in this paper I will assume that Lucretius has an extreme philosophical requirement towards his reader, and that he claims to offer him a consistent philosophical material. Lucretius’s text is intended for a neophyte but literate Epicurean, experienced in discursive and conceptual finesse, and fully capable of interpreting the multiple paradoxes presented in the poem. 20  Lucretius’s position would therefore be close to that defended by Lysias in the Phaedrus. 19

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By this reasoning, the rational calculation must also take duration into account. To abstain from what is often necessary but potentially a source of suffering is not sound calculation; it is better to look for the limit towards which we must strive so that, over the course of a lifetime, pleasures and sorrows are balanced. Hence, to abstain from all wealth for an entire lifetime is bad, since a life spent in poverty is unpleasant. It is necessary to estimate the exact measure of wealth that will guarantee the maximum pleasure over the course of a lifetime and thus counterbalance the necessary anxieties and worries that go with the possession of property. Too much wealth leads to too much strain: the balance is lost. The difference between wealth and sex most likely resides in the fact that the former requires measuredness and balance, not only quantitative but qualitative as well. What these texts seem to point to is that certain qualities of erotic relationships, and not simply the number of them, can upset the balance of a happy life. In other words, it is probably the transformation of the desire for sex into something else that is objectionable, because it superimposes an empty desire on a real one. The question still unanswered if we take the texts in this sense—and indeed the very question Lucretius himself raises—is how to identify the real and desirable form of sexual eros, and how to find a “pure” sexual eros, i.e. one that is profoundly disengaged from any toxic affectivity but also from any erotic cultural apparatus diverting it from its natural meaning. Once we have come to terms with the distinction between sexual, cultural and affective eros, we are in a position to understand the subversive power of the Epicurean position, which is fundamentally anti-Platonic and entirely reverses the hierarchy between the distinct dimensions of eros23—good and desirable if and only if it no longer has anything to do with the eros described by Plato. In Lucretius we find that inversion of the positive eros assumes one of two forms: either random ejaculation in a random body (the vagrant Venus) or conjugal friendship, which would hence be antithetical to a vision that could be qualified, if anachronistically, as libertine. Ovid’s will be the latter, in which there is both a decisive, drastic selection of a desirable body and the refusal of any conjugal life. This subversion goes even further if we consider that the Lucretian description of sexuality is far less traditionally gendered than comments on the text still predominantly suggest today—and that female sexuality plays a central normative role in the sense that, particularly in the figure of Venus, it provides a model (deeply secularized for the occasion) of free and happy sexuality—in short, perfectly Epicurean.

21  [Π]άν|τα [μὲ]ν̣ οὖν οὐ φευ[κ]τέον, ὧν | ὑπα[ρχό]ντων καὶ πρ[άγ]ματα | ἔχει[ν] ἔστιν καὶ φροντίδ[α]ς | καὶ [ἀγ]ωνίας οἱασδήποτε, ὡς | π̣ροείπαμεν· τινὰ δὲ | δεκ̣[τέον], ὧν κ̣αὶ τὸν πλοῦ|τον, τ[ὸ] βάρος ἔχοντα μ̣ε[ῖ]|ον ὅτα̣ν π̣α̣ρῆι, μᾶλλον π[ρ]ὸς | ὅλον [βί]ον ἀλλὰ μὴ πρός τ[ι]να | καιρό[ν] 22  Cf. Tsouna (2013). 23  Cf. Nussbaum (2002, p. 142).

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7.3  F  rom Vagrant Venus to Venus Voluptas: Another Sexual Morality 7.3.1  The Ejaculatory Venus: Venus’s True Title? The part of Book IV that interests us can be analyzed as follows: vv. 1030–1036: explanation of erotic dreams vv. 1037–1057: puberty, desire and its physical manifestations: erection/ejaculation vv. 1058–1076: praise of the vagrant Venus vv. 1075–1099: illness of amorous Venus vv. 1100–1120: empty and unlimited erotic desire vv. 1121–1145: social consequences of love vv. 1146–1189: the love-trap built by the lover himself vv. 1190–1209: truth of sexual pleasure vv. 1210–1277: pleasure and reproduction: the double-seed theory vv. 1278–1286: praise of marital Venus The very construction of the text indicates Lucretius’s subversive intentions, for the introduction begins with the description of a particularly trivial set of aphrodisia: erotic dreams. This introduction coolly removes passion from sex and contributes powerfully to the way romanticism and love will be walled off from the issue at the very outset (Brown 1987, p. 63). The analogy between ejaculation and injury and the redundant wordplay surrounding amor/umor suggests the identification of sexuality with the evacuation of a fluid whose accumulation is embarrassing, the evocation of fantasies not only steering the direction of the jet but also facilitating ejaculation. In this sense, sex fits neatly into the general definition of Epicurean pleasure as framed by the pleasure/pain dichotomy: it avoids the physical pain caused by accumulation. The role of fantasy as a visual support also reinforces the general physical hypothesis of mutual attraction: sexual desire is a manifestation of it (in the tendency of entities to attract each other spontaneously). Sex is therefore a physiological and immediately reciprocal phenomenon driven by a process that is mechanical. The physiology of desire has as its physical model the emission of sperm,24 i.e. an individual, selfish, solitary process: eros by its introduction via erotic dreams is described as masturbation to an illusory, absolutely fictional object of desire, any such receptacle being sufficient to relieve the related organic tension.25 Does this mean, as v. 1058 might suggest (“Haec Venus est nobis”), that the emission of sperm is the only true sense of loving desire?26  Cf. Gigandet (2003).  v. 1065: “iacere umorem coniectum in corpora quaeque.” 26  “Bilan: Vénus est le nom d’un processus physique dont Lucrèce souligne d’un bout à l’autre le caractère mécanique, anonyme, sans place pour une quelconque instance subjective” (Gigandet 2003, p. 99). 24 25

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Given the subject’s spectacular introduction, framed as it is around the repurposing of Venus for ejaculation, one might believe that the model here described is gendered: as always in philosophical literature, sex is described from a male point of view and pitched in a male physiological framework. The impression is reinforced by the fact that the long diatribe that follows clearly sets out the scenario in a traditional fashion: an object of love which is female or with a feminine figure,27 and the analysis of the male desire for it. Hence our Venus becomes the object of male sexual desire defined as a discharge for relief. It is nevertheless important to begin with a disclaimer that will alter this reading considerably; inscribing this physiology of love within an epistemological framework endows it with a scope which is far more ambiguous from the standpoint of gender. Throughout this entire section Lucretius draws inspiration from a medical model at least as old as Democritus himself, namely the double-seed theory, whereby the seed that wins out is necessarily the most abundant. This materialistic physiological model has met with remarkable success ever since it first appeared in the Hippocratic treatise Peri Gonês, which is in fact structurally identical in many respects to the Lucretian text, not least in Chap. 4. In particular, there are deep parallels with regard to the framing of infertility as an incompatibility of male and female sperm or a deficiency of one or the other. The two texts thus insist that the greater the pleasure for each partner, the more abundant the emission of seed; the child will in all cases resemble the one who has experienced the most pleasure.28 And when by chance, in the mixture, it is the female seed that by a sudden force prevails over the male force and seizes it, then the children from the maternal seed resemble the mother, as those from the paternal seed the father. (vv. 1209–1212)29

This means that there is secretion and joint emission (therefore ejaculation) by both men and women. Physiological symmetry means the expected relief is the same for both sexes (Cuny-Le Callet 2005, ch. 2). Curiously, this point, though obvious, seems to have gone unnoticed by most commentators of the text (who implicitly interpret the corpora of v. 1065, “iacere umorem coniectum in corpora quaeque,” as necessarily describing female bodies). However, if we agree that Lucretius is not inclined towards contradiction, there is no reason to suppose the ejaculation he describes is exclusively male. A very important indication of this lies in the details the poet offers when qualifying the assorted Venuses: those of each member of the couple, “the Venus of the assailants  v. 1053: “puer membris mulieribus.”  Physiologies that repudiate the existence of female semen will attribute mechanical causes to female infertility (focusing on either the nature of the matrix or the positioning) and totally separate the question of fertility from that of pleasure. Two consequences ensue: 1) female infertility alone is the subject of advanced treatments (because seed production is assumed to exist so long as the male experiences pleasure); 2) female pleasure becomes an incongruity or a physiological surplus. See in particular Flemming (2013, pp. 565–590). 29  “Et commiscendo quom semine forte virilem femina vim vicit subita vi corripuitque, tum similes matrum materno semine fiunt, ut patribus patrio.”

27 28

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(Venerem salientum)” (v. 1200), and that of the male only, the “Venus of the man (viri Venerem)” (v. 1270). The ejaculatory model is thus mixed and will, in a sense, anchor the entire text. The Lucretian demonstration starts with the erotic dream, which is perhaps the most raw and abstract version of the ejaculatory model we have seen (ejaculation that does not even require a real object to satisfy itself), only to precipitate what is in fact its most concrete version: fertile intercourse where complementary female and male ejaculation accomplish the noble natural function of reproduction. But whether solitary or dual, the mechanism is identical: tension, surge, relief. From this standpoint we understand quite well the role that vagrant (volgivaga; v. 1071) Venus comes to play here. Because the erotic dream and mating obey the same physiological laws and offer the same relief, that relief’s correlation to a privileged object or support is absurd: on the contrary, every receptacle is apt, and an increase in possible receptacles ultimately serves as a backstop in that it prevents the mind from proceeding to misinterpretations, such as associating the relief with the relief support. Sexual vagrancy is valued as the safest way to dissociate the pleasure experienced and the body in or with which it is experienced.

7.3.2  Venus Voluptas and the Question of Reciprocity It should be noted that the vagrant Venus is neither the first nor the only occurrence of Venus in De Rerum Natura; and she would appear locked in direct competition with the Venus of Book I, explicitly qualified as voluptas. This apparent competition is immensely problematic, because voluptas, strictly speaking, is the Epicurean telos itself. If the voluptas of the vagrant Venus is real and corresponds to a genuine physical relief, how can we conciliate it with the Venus voluptas of Book I, which advocates a pleasure that is no longer individual but whose essential dimension is that it is shared and that, as such, it contributes to harmony (via the reconciliation of Mars and Venus)? In this sense, it seems that the challenge of Book IV is to propose, in addition to the model of ejaculatory, individual relief, a model of collective and reciprocal voluptuousness that escapes the aporia of the love model in the Platonic sense. The harmonic power of Venus corresponds to a complex dimension of this mythical figure in the text of Lucretius. A cursory reading reveals Venus as having two obvious symbolic functions: the sexual impulse on the one hand, and the desire for peace and harmony on the other. In this, like Konstan (2008, pp.  150–151), we detect the changing pace of two necessary steps towards wisdom: first to satisfy the needs of the flesh, and then to attain the peace of the soul through concord (the flesh alone, even appeased, is not sufficient for joy). Friendship as a condition for peace and security is the next and necessary step for that peace of the soul that constitutes an assurance of divine life. Nevertheless, on a second level, we can also appreciate in the figure of Venus an Epicurean desire to compete with the Stoic Zeus. Such is the reading offered by

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Asmis (1982, pp. 458–470), who pits the Venus of Lucretius—symbol of pleasure, fertility and spontaneous and hazardous organization of the natural order—against an authoritarian, tyrannical and providential Zeus. The powers of Venus are comparable to those of Zeus, but she performs them differently. Zeus is a giver of life (phusis) but also of reason (logos) and above all of law (nomos).30 The law of Venus is just as powerful, but does not imply any external constraints or demonstration of authority to be obeyed. The harmony created by Venus is thus freely consented to and not imposed; it is achieved by an internalized pacification of the world, not by subjugation. As a power of life, Venus voluptas presides over generation and becomes Venus genitrix. In so doing, she superimposes a form of natural collective horizon on the goal of immediate relief begotten by the sexual act. One can then wonder, first, whether Lucretius prioritizes between these two purposes and whether Venus genitrix or ejaculatory Venus is the most important; and second, whether these two purposes contradict each other—particularly as regards the question of female pleasure, given that the hypothesis that accommodates the double-seed theory is invalidated by at least one other passage in which Lucretius appears to take the view that female pleasure is unfavourable to female fertility. The passage in question is located in vv. 1268–1277: And the soft movements are of little use to wives. Because the woman prevents herself from conceiving and deviates violently from it […]. Prostitutes have their reason for these movements in order not to get pregnant too often, and at the same time they make Venus even more attractive to men; which seems useless for our wives.31

Some commentators have inferred from this brief excerpt that Epicureans dissociated pleasure and procreation, in the sense that movements increasing female pleasure are also purported to decrease fertility.32 Some stop short of such assertions and note simply that Lucretius’s approach here is descriptive and not prescriptive: rather than value fertility in terms of pleasure, he merely points out a physiological circumstance that diminishes it. But these two interpretations are based, in my opinion, on a misinterpretation, linked to a misunderstanding of the meaning of v. 1262. In the sentence “nec molles opus sunt motus uxoribus hilum,” the movements of the prostitute compared to the  These attributes are commentedon by Philodemus, in his Peri Eusebeias where he comments on Chrysippus’s Peri Theon. Cf. Asmis (1982, pp. 465–466): “Lucretius presents Venus’ conquest not as a forced submission on the part of the conquered, but as a voluntary, eager pursuit of the goddess. […] Stoic Providence and Fate have been replaced by Epicurean desire and freedom.” 31  “nec molles opus sunt motus uxoribus hilum. / nam mulier prohibet se concipere atque repugnat, / […] / idque sua causa consuerunt scorta moveri, / ne complerentur crebro gravidaeque iacerent, / et simul ipsa viris Venus ut concinnior esset; / coniugibus quod nil nostris opus esse videtur.” 32  “Les courtisanes font alors peut-être le meilleur calcul: en donnant plus de plaisir, en en prenant elles-mêmes sans doute plus (voir IV, 1192–1197, où est montré, de manière assez nouvelle sans doute et c’est suffisamment rare en philosophie pour être souligné, que la femme prend elle aussi plaisir à faire l’amour), elles ne risquent pas d’avoir d’enfants: on ne saurait beaucoup plus désolidariser le mariage du plaisir, puisque lorsque l’on recherche l’un, on évite la fin naturelle de l’autre, et lorsqu’on veut un enfant dans le mariage, on évite le plaisir” (Laurand 2007, par. 22). 30

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woman are soft not in the sense that they signal pleasure experienced, but in the sense that they are intended to provoke the pleasure of the partner. Courtesans move in order to increase their lover’s lust; they are at work in his service—and therefore adhere to a strategy of manipulation and possibly even deception, because their pleasure may very well only be simulated. Here, in reality, Lucretius adopts the notion of sincerity that was precisely linked to authentic female pleasure, in v. 1190 and as follows: the sincere woman is the one who seeks pleasure and does not affect love; she is also the one who uses sexual intercourse for her own good rather than exchange value. But a woman’s sighs in love are not always feigned when, their bodies mixed, embraced with the lover, she wets her lips with devouring kisses; for often she acts sincerely, and, seeking common joys, she invites us to travel through the place of love. (vv. 1192–1196)33

Here again the “locked in embrace” structure of the text takes on its full meaning and the disparate parts answer each other perfectly: • the traps and illusions of love corrupt sexual pleasure with passion; • however, sexual pleasure is an instance of truth, it is the place where Venus does not lie; • pleasure is indeed necessary for fertility in the context of the theory of double seed; • courtesans “trap” the male seed and effect a simulacrum of coitus which, lacking reciprocity, is not fertile. Hence, far from contradiction there is, on the contrary, a balance between the two Venuses, for pleasure and generation are indeed two compatible and even complementary ends. It remains to be seen whether this harmony between pleasure and fertility adds to our understanding of what a relationship that is healthy, non-toxic, and in tune with the call of Venus looks like—if such a relationship is possible; and, above all, as we may be tempted to interpret in Book IV, if it is confused with the conjugal relationship.

7.4  The Conjugal Venus, Repellent or Model? 7.4.1  Should the Wise Man Marry or Not? According to an explicit passage from Diogenes Laertius’s summary of Epicurean ethics (X, 119), the wise man should marry. In reality, things are not so straightforward: the text itself in the manuscripts is corrupt, and there are indeed contradictory

 “Nec mulier semper ficto suspirat amore, / quae conplexa viri corpus cum corpore iungit / et tenet adsuctis umectans oscula labris; / nam facit ex animo saepe et communia quaerens / gaudia sollicitat spatium decurrere amoris.”

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exegeses of this passage in particular, with and without the negation.34 Should the wise man marry or not marry? Some commentators urge focus on the text’s literality35; others, Morel for instance, offer more subtle readings. Morel (2011, p. 145 n. 5) notes that the Laertian testimonies which mention this prohibition of marriage seem to be related to a lost Epicurean set entitled Diaporiai, and that these issues were therefore regarded as problematic within the Garden itself. Nussbaum for her part (1994, p.  153) points to Lucretius’s utilitarian approach: his own political will to respect the Roman family imperative would lead him to interpret Epicurus’s reserves in such a way as to be favourable to marriage. My own hypothesis is that Epicurus’s reserves are not nearly as fierce as has been claimed. In fact, as we shall see, the conjugal relationship has a fairly significant number of advantages for an Epicurean.

7.4.2  Marriage, a Place of Disillusionment Nussbaum (1994, ch. 4) proposes quite judiciously to link what Lucretius says about marriage with what he says about sensory illusions, most of which are resolved by a spatial rapprochement: the closer we are, the better we see. In the context of the intersubjective relationship, Epicurus throws up other traces of appreciation for the close in relation to the distant, especially in Sent. Vat. 61: Very beautiful is the sight of the loved ones, when the circle of the most familiar is in harmony, or participates with zeal in establishing this harmony.36

It is the sensible proximity that forms the basis of true affection; it generates a solid bond, created by the habit of relationship, but also and above all a distillation of the gaze, which replaces the illusion of dazzling love with the recognition of individual value which justifies the loving indulgence. According to Lucretius: And then you can also, when she has a beautiful mind and is not obnoxious, in turn blind yourself, and then concede to human nature. (vv. 1190–1191)37

The Venus here proposed no longer possesses anything divine or heroic in the poetic (i.e. religious) sense of the term. Conjugality is the state in which an individual’s truth can emerge in broad daylight, because it rids the affectivity of the whole false apparatus whose cultural eroticism had overwhelmed the protagonists. It is fascinating to observe how the solidity of the bond created by this disillusionment in love presupposes a de-crystallization, and therefore a real blasting

 Usener’s critical apparatus here highlights this confusion among the editors of Diogenes Laertius’s testimony (1887, fr. 19, pp. 97–98). 35  See for example Brennan (1996, pp. 346–352). 36  Καλλίστη καὶ ἡ τῶν πλησίον ὄψις τῆς πρώτης συγγενήσεως ὁμονοούσης ἢ καὶ πολλὴν εἰς τοῦτο ποιουμένης σπουδήν. 37  “Si bello animost et non odiosa, vicissim praetermittere humanis concedere rebus.” 34

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process. It is in this respect that we understand the image of the drop of water digging the stone, expressed in vv. 1274–1278. For the bond to be forged, there must first be a destruction, which could be both the destruction of the obstructive fantasy and its replacement by the real person revealed by habit, and that of the love bond itself, which must be broken for a healthy distance to generate the conjugal bond. It is particularly interesting to contrast Lucretius with Ovid, who authored two poems, Amores and Ars Amatoria, that offer the very same words on the illusionary power of eros but which, given their usage in two opposite demonstrations, afford it a completely different meaning.38 For Ovid, the lie of eros is his condition of possibility. When desire is nourished only by this crystallizing divinization of the loved one, the woman can only be desired if she is not what she is—and the lover accepts these artifices and lies knowing they are the price of his pleasure. This need for camouflage in seduction makes the conjugal relationship altogether hostile to desire because the impossibility of hiding its true nature is implicit.39 What is permitted and easy, whoever wishes it, let him go and pick the leaves of the trees, and drink water from a great river! (Am. II 19, vv. 31–32)40

For Lucretius, however, the lie of eros is what prevents pleasure, in that it forces the two protagonists to a comedy that is doomed to failure, whereas voluptas can only succeed in sincerity. The role-playing game of love is hence despised and rejected by the Epicurean poet, who prefers the brutality of sexual intercourse delivered from all artifice and directed only towards the physical pleasures of both partners, and who supposes at the same time that the conjugal bond can accommodate this type of sexual relationship: “consuetudo concinnat amorem” (v. 1283).

 Ovid, Ars Amatoria II, vv. 651–672 and Lucretius, De Rerum Natura IV, vv. 1153–1170. See also, on this tremendous case of ancient intertextuality, Giovacchini (2014, pp.  91–100) and Lehoux (2013, pp. 144–146). 39  There is in fact a positive use of artifice in the De Rerum Natura, expressed by the well-known image of honey and absinthe, developed as if by chance in the same Book IV (vv. 11–25). The use of poetic art is presented by Lucretius as a legitimate ruse intended to lead the mind to the truth through a pleasure (honey) masking the bitterness and harshness of the philosophical doctrine. This is a rhetorical tension in the Lucretian text, which we have already had the opportunity to analyze in a previous article (Giovacchini 2013, especially pp. 48–49), and which must be considered when examining the different faces of Venus. The pleasure of honey is a misleading pleasure to a certain extent; it is not intended to remove or veil the truth, but on the contrary to make it possible to appropriate it; this is what distinguishes the philosophical Venus from the libertine Venus here criticized. 40  “Quod licet et facile est, quisquis cupit, arbore frondis, / Carpat et e magno flumine potet aquam!” Cf. Laurand (2007, par. 5): “Les plaisirs non interdits, faciles à se procurer, les plaisirs naturels et nécessaires épicuriens pour tout dire, ne font pas plaisir—et surtout ils n’ont rien à voir avec la passion amoureuse.” 38

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7.4.3  A New Contradiction? Is Lucretius’s project ultimately to make a pronouncement on the rules of a good marriage? How can we reconcile this search for conjugality with the vagrant Venus? After all, marriage involves only one object. A first hypothesis, put forward for example by Morel and Gigandet, assumes a rather weak coherence of the whole at the end of Book IV and casts this text, including Diogenes Laertius’s ethical summary, as literature of an aporetic slant: as in Epicurus’s Diaporiai, Lucretius would propose a fragmented sequence of sections dealing with the varying problems of aphrodisia without general demonstrative intention (Gigandet 2003, pp. 108–110). This account is directly at odds with Nussbaum’s much stronger hypothesis, which inserts the Lucretian vision of marriage into the framework of a collective and social search for pleasure, marriage becoming, in Nussbaum’s account, the political expression of the ideal of concord that is expressed to couples in the reciprocity of pleasure. In Book IV, then, the pivot is from the individual to the couple and from the couple to the community. By this reading, love is the other name for philanthropy, the only social cement Epicureans recognize, which consists in seeking the conditions for a common happiness based on the similarity and reciprocity of interests. Nussbaum (1994, p. 162) ties the end of Book IV to the beginning of Book V and Lucretius’s anthropological account of the first human communities: love explains the original social bonds, which are deeply beneficial for humanity; family tenderness brings men together and truly humanizes them (since, before conjugality, they lead a bestial existence). Gigandet (2003, p.  110) rejects this reading precisely because, hermeneutical effectiveness notwithstanding, it superimposes explicit norms on Epicurean anthropology, norms which are nevertheless absent from the Lucretian exposition, in which the constitution of societies is not explicitly and spontaneously linked to the Epicurean telos.41 The Epicurean nature cannot be explained by ethical norms, because it avoids any teleological explanation; it is not spontaneously ordered towards a good and it is not organized in such a way as to produce norms. Venus will once more avoid becoming a providential authority; ergo the conjugal relationship cannot be misconstrued as a norm that ought to be imposed. This relationship is a one-off accommodation, a state of affairs that can give way to shared pleasure or, on the contrary, a renewed opportunity for domination, alienation or perversion. In this sense, conjugality is a possible state of Venus, both as Venus voluptas and as vagrant Venus. The great lesson of this text is probably that these disparate conceptions of sexuality are not contradictory; rather, they correspond to distinct “measured” ways, in the sense that they are subjected to the rational calculation of pursuing pleasure. The picture proposed by Lucretius correlates these varying  “À cet égard, il en va des institutions comme des techniques: elles ne produisent pas avec elles leur mode d’emploi éthique, et sont de ce fait inévitablement ambivalentes” (Gigandet 2003, p. 110).

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instances with the same Epicurean category of natural pleasures, necessary in terms of thinking about not only the relief of sexual tension but also reproduction and the type of philia nourished by serene conjugality. But the obvious point I hope to have made is that this picture makes sense from the moment we read the text from a female perspective: it is the presence of female sexuality and the description of female pleasure as a natural and essential circumstance of Venus herself that allow us to detect the coherence of the Epicurean conception of sexuality.42 It is possible that the difficulties in grasping the meaning of the Epicurean excerpts considered in the first part can be traced to the male perspective from which they are most often apprehended, which casts aphrodisia in the light of traditionally gendered erotic imagery, the same imagery that Lucretius deconstructed in Book IV of De Rerum Natura. And it is remarkable to note that historically, the hegemony of Venus and the harmonious conception of the affective commerce over which she presides will be turned against the Epicureans, depicting in them an immoral, vitiated, weak nature, at the antipodes of the virtus. This is what Gordon points out when she notes (2012, p.  109) that Roman pudicitia, or sexual reserve, is indeed a quality which belongs to both men and women of the true virtus; lust, on the other hand, is a vice far removed from virility—the debauched betrays in himself a female dimension of abandonment, leading him to accept, for example, penetration. This explains why, whereas Greek opponents of Epicureanism accuse Epicureans of being immoral, the charge as employed among the Romans is transformed, allowing them to see Epicureans first and foremost as effeminate.43 Thus, that Epicureans model happy life in terms of what is reciprocally and collectively pleasant is an obvious sign of their devirilization. This is crucial to understanding yet another accusation of softness and effeminization in Plutarch’s harsh words for the adage attributed to the Epicureans: “Lead a hidden life!” Epicureans who rejected political life were said to reject glory and therefore “light,” since they preferred the darkness of a reclusive and pleasant life—a woman’s. The utopia imagined by Epicurus and perhaps partially achieved in the Garden, where we know that women took an active role in philosophical activities, may have been the Epicurean’s dream of general exchange of pleasure and friendship, a reciprocal philanthropy informing a new social pact.44  It is in fact another considerable difference between Lucretius and Ovid, the latter making the woman a prey, a conquest or a manipulator and adopting her point of view only in a rhetorical way and without any possible identification in the third part of Ars Amatoria. 43  Gordon (2012, p. 109): “as a Greek import and as the school that promoted ‘pleasure,’ the Garden threatened to disrupt a requisite component of Roman public life: the vigilant maintenance of the masculine self. A fundamental mode of response to this threat involved a seizing of control of Epicurean language.” 44  After submitting this paper, I was able to consult Morel’s article (2019) on what the author interprets as a Lucretian common approach between sex, love and politics. Morel considers that the positive amorous model of free sexuality is for Lucretius a counter-model, opposed to the situation of alienation characteristic of political life: “Il me semble donc que l’évocation de l’amour primitif, en un sens, mais plus encore la justification de l’amour volage, sont non seulement une alternative radicale à l’amour passionnel, mais encore un contre-modèle fécond face à cette autre forme 42

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Acknowledgments  The hypotheses developed in this article were presented in March 2018 as part of the symposium Feminine Perspectives in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, for which I warmly thank the organizers. I would also like to express my gratitude to Griffin Lasher Smith for reviewing the English version of this text. My debt is also great towards the three reviewers of this article for their suggestions and remarks. All the errors remaining in this text are mine.

References Asmis, E. (1982). Lucretius’ Venus and Stoic Zeus. Hermes: Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie, 110(4), 458–470. Boehringer, S. (2005). Sexe, genre, sexualité: Mode d’emploi (dans l’Antiquité). Kentron, 21. https://doi.org/10.4000/kentron.1801 Brennan, T. (1996). Epicurus on sex, marriage and children. Classical Philology, 91(4), 346–352. Brown, R. D. (1987). Lucretius on love and sex. Brill. Cuny-Le Callet, B. (2005). Rome et ses monstres: Naissance d’un concept philosophique et rhétorique. Éditions Millon. Flemming, R. (2013). The invention of infertility in the classical Greek world: Medicine, divinity, and gender. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 87(4), 565–590. Gale, M. (1994). Lucretius 4.1–25 and the proems of the De rerum natura. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 40, 1–17. Gale, M. (1996). Myth and poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge University Press. Gigandet, A. (2003). Lucrèce et l’amour conjugal. Un remède à la passion? In B.  Besnier, P.-F. Moreau, & L. Renault (Eds.), Les passions antiques et médiévales (pp. 95–110). PUF. Giovacchini, J. (2012). L’empirisme d’Épicure. Garnier. Giovacchini, J. (2013). Scepticisme et thérapeutique: Le cas de conscience du dogmatisme épicurien. In S. Marchand & F. Verde (Eds.), Épicurisme et scepticisme (pp. 45–62). Sapienza Università Editrice. Giovacchini, J. (2014). La perception érotique du corps dans l’esthétique épicurienne. In G. Puccini (Ed.), Le corps humain et les cinq sens: Positions du débat dans l’Antiquité (pp.  91–100). Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux. Gordon, P. (2012). The invention and gendering of Epicurus. University of Michigan Press. Konstan, D. (2008). A life worthy of Gods. The materialist psychology of Epicurus (Rev. and exp. ed.). Parmenides. Laurand, V. (2007). Le mariage: Plaisir de la censure? In L.  Boulègue & C.  Lévy (Eds.), Hédonismes: Penser et dire le plaisir dans l’Antiquité et à la Renaissance. Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.septentrion.9287 Lehoux, D. (2013). Seeing and unseeing, seen and unseen. In D.  Lehoux, A.  D. Morrison, & A. R. Sharrock (Eds.), Lucretius: Poetry, philosophy, science (pp. 131–152). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605408.001.0001 Masson, J. (1895). New details from Suetonius’s Life of Lucretius. JP—The Journal of Philology, 23, 220–237.

d’union que constitue la vie sociale et face aux vaines ambitions qu’entretient la pratique politique” (Morel 2019, p. 80). Morel argues that the Lucretian position therefore values neither free sexuality nor conjugal affectivity for themselves, but only as alternatives to uncontrollable passion. Thus, Lucretius would not constitute them as real practical norms—in particular not to be “en contradiction avec les restrictions formulées par Épicure à propos de la sexualité.” My reading proposes a more prescriptive interpretation of the De Rerum Natura, in that I set out to read in Book IV a loving and affective ethics that could well constitute a true political model.

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Mitsis, P. T. (2014). L’éthique d’Épicure: Les plaisirs de l’invulnérabilité (A. Gigandet, Trans). Classiques Garnier. Morel, P.-M. (2011). Épicure, Lettres, maximes et autres textes. Flammarion. Morel, P.-M. (2013). Conformité à la nature et décision rationnelle dans l’éthique épicurienne. In G. Rossi (Ed.), Nature and the best life. Exploring the natural bases of practical normativity in ancient philosophy (pp. 249–274). George Olms V. Morel, P.-M. (2019). Sexe, amour et politique chez Lucrèce. Philosophie Antique: Problèmes, Renaissances, Usages, 19, 57–84. Nussbaum, M.  C. (1994). The therapy of desire: Theory and practice in Hellenistic ethics. Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, M. C. (2002). Eros and ethical norms: Philosophers respond to a cultural dilemma. In M. C. Nussbaum & J. Sihvola (Eds.), The sleep of reason: Erotic experience and sexual ethics in ancient Greece and Rome (pp. 55–94). University of Chicago Press. O’Hara, J. J. (2006). Inconsistency in Roman epic: Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan. Cambridge University Press. Pirenne-Delforge, V. (1994). L’Aphrodite grecque: Contribution à l’étude de ses cultes et de sa personnalité dans le panthéon archaïque et classique. Centre international d’étude de la religion grecque antique. Sedley, D.  N. (1998). Lucretius and the transformation of Greek wisdom. Cambridge University Press. Tepedino Guerra, A. (2000). La scuola di Epicuro: Metrodoro, Polieno, Ermarco. Cronache Ercolanesi: Bollettino del Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi, 30, 35–44. Tsouna, V. (2013). Philodemus: On property management. Society of Biblical Literature. Usener, H. (1887). Epicurea. B. G. Teubneri. Julie Giovacchini  has been a research engineer at the CNRS since 2009, specializing in the analysis of ancient sources and scientific information. She is an alumna of the École Normale Supérieure (A/L 1997), and she defended her PhD thesis at Paris-X Nanterre in March 2007 (The Epicurean Method and its Medical Model, under the supervision of Francis Wolff, https://hal. archives-­ouvertes.fr/tel-­01425661). Her research focuses on ancient philosophy and the history of medicine. She works more specifically on ancient Epicureanism, Scepticism, Hippocratic and Galenic medicine, and more generally on the history of empiricism and its links with certain ethical and political positions in antiquity. She is also interested in the transmission of Epicurean texts in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and more broadly in the editorial history of Epicureanism. She is a founding member of the IPhiS project (Philological Information—Ancient Knowledge, iphi.hypotheses.org).

Chapter 8

An Epicurean Community of Women: A Response to Julie Giovacchini Natania Meeker

Abstract  This essay responds to Julie Giovacchini’s analysis of women’s pleasure in Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura. Lucretius has often been read as a heterodox thinker, but only rarely has his critique of human institutions and human ideologies been extended to include men’s control over women. Giovacchini shows how the preponderance of masculine and masculinist perspectives on Lucretius has rendered illegible or unspeakable the feminine dimensions of pleasure as Lucretius represents them. Her article provides a way back through a long history of women actively engaging with Lucretius and Epicurean philosophy in order to imagine new forms of community and solidarity. It also suggests a way forward to a speculative feminist future in which philosophical and affective bonds among women and other feminine subjects are given priority in visions of social harmony and collective delight. Giovacchini not only invites us to consider the effects of patriarchal modes of reading on the reception of ancient philosophy, she suggests a détournement or troping of the Lucretian legacy in order to center women in the full materiality of their pleasures. Keywords  Giovacchini · Feminisms · Lucretius · Femininity · Pleasure · Speculation · New materialism · Epicureanism

For some time now, Lucretius studies have been enjoying a revival, one whose intensity has only accelerated in recent years. In philosophy, Thomas Nail’s Lucretius I: An Ontology of Motion appeared in 2018, the same year a new translation by David Webb and William Ross of Michel Serres’s The Birth of Physics was published and a year after the publication of Ryan Johnson’s The Deleuze-Lucretius

N. Meeker (*) Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_8

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Encounter. This wave of new readings of Lucretius followed a return to the Roman poet and philosopher in Renaissance studies, including Ada Palmer’s Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance (2014) and, in a more literary vein, Gerard Passanante’s The Lucretian Renaissance: Philology and the Afterlife of Tradition (2011). Stephen Greenblatt’s Pulitzer-prize winning The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2012), while the object of considerable scholarly critique, brought Lucretius to a global audience. In the discipline of literature, Lucretius’s influence on Marx is fundamental to Jacques Lezra’s theoretical tour de force entitled On the Nature of Marx’s Things: Translation as Necrophilology (2018), and Lucretian theories of life traverse Amanda Jo Goldstein’s deft and recondite Sweet Science: Romantic Materialism and the New Logics of Life (2017). This is to say nothing of the many edited volumes and collections appearing throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, which arguably constitute a “first wave” within the Lucretian revival. Already in 2009 Gordon Campbell was claiming that “Lucretius reaches the mainstream” in his review article of the same title, which begins “It has taken over three hundred years from the time that Thomas Creech published the first full English translation in 1682 for Lucretius to become respectable” (Campbell 2009, p.  115). Jacques Lezra and Liza Blake cite Campbell in the introduction to their edited volume on Lucretius and Modernity: Epicurean Encounters Across Time and Disciplines, itself part of the “new” new wave of Lucretius studies and published in 2016. Indeed, the titles listed here represent only a truncated survey of some of the more significant anglophone revisions of Lucretius since the dawn of the new millennium. If Lucretius is claimed as the preeminent thinker for modernity by Greenblatt, the past 20 years suggest the continuing appeal of the Roman philosopher within the context of what is sometimes known as late capitalism. In a broader, more diffuse, context, we can find a Lucretian strain visible within the rise, over the past 10 years or so, of what have been called the “new materialisms,” even if there is no entry for Lucretius in Diana Coole and Samantha Frost’s path-breaking edited collection New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics (2010). The points of connection seem on the one hand obvious: the contemporary  notion of a material world animated through and through, with humans no longer standing at its center, is not too far from the Lucretian vision of nature joyfully awakening to voluptuous pleasure, promulgated in the hymn to Venus that opens the first book of the De Rerum Natura (DRN). On the other hand, most new materialisms (and feminist new materialism in particular) do not explicitly locate their origins in classical traditions. Instead, they are often more avowedly post-­ Cartesian, with an emphasis on the critique of the so-called mind/body divide, itself understood as the product of a modern epistemological tradition thought to begin with René Descartes (1596–1650). Nonetheless, Lucretius also makes a brief appearance in Jane Bennett’s by-now classic Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (2010), although Bennett is suspicious of what she calls the poem’s “realism” (2010, p. 18). Still, Bennett acknowledges the significance of the DRN as part of the effort to “direct sensory, linguistic, and imaginative attention toward a material vitality” (2010, p. 19).

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If lately philosophers and literary critics can speak of a “linguistic turn,” a “posthuman turn,” and even a “plant turn,” where does that leave the move (back) to Lucretius? In some sense, Lucretius has a role to play in all of these tropings and turnings—knitting together a poststructuralist interest in the materiality of the letter with a new materialist focus on the life of things. In Lucretius, both the scene of poetry and the world of objects are animate. Either way, the intensity of the resurgence of interest in Lucretius shows little sign of letting up. In this context, it is remarkable that one aspect of the Lucretian legacy has received relatively little contemporary attention, particularly since it was long a key element in the response to Epicureanism more broadly, and in the reaction to the DRN from the classical period through at least the eighteenth century— namely, the relationship of Lucretius, and Epicureanism in general, to the twinned themes of gender and sexuality. In her 2012 study on The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus, Pamela Gordon expertly reveals the gendered dynamics at work in the portrayal of Epicurean communities as being in thrall to feminine and feminizing pleasures, and not simply for their willingness to welcome women among their members. In De vita beata, Seneca describes a hypothetical Epicurean as clothed in women’s garments, while almost two millennia later, in eighteenth-century France, Denis Diderot returns to this image to portray Epicurus himself as a man in drag: in Diderot’s rendering of Seneca, “Épicure fut un héros déguisé en femme” (Diderot 1875, p. 316). Yet most of the contemporary works mentioned above rarely dwell for long on the place of gender in a Lucretian ethics. And if they evoke at all the image of a “lovesick Lucretius,” which was a staple of Renaissance commentary, it is most often to dismiss it. Is this because scholars and academics have by now moved beyond what are, seen in a modern light, blatantly sexist stereotypes concerning the feminine softness of voluptuous pleasure, not to mention misogynist anxiety around the effect of women on the philosophical communities that allow them access? Is the time right to embrace a kind of “post-feminist” Lucretius, despite the fact that the case for the feminist Lucretius has been all too rarely made? Are we finally in a moment where we can turn our full attention to the operations of a vibrant, posthumanist materiality without having to worry too much about the kinds of human solidarities that such a materiality might enable or efface? Julie Giovacchini’s resonant feminist analysis of Lucretius suggests that the answer to these questions is still a resounding “no.” Giovacchini convincingly makes the case that the contemporary reluctance to engage Lucretius as a thinker of gender must be considered in the context of the enduring power of a masculine and masculinist reading of the poet’s works. Moreover, resistance to understanding Lucretius as a philosopher of gender and sexuality further obscures a legacy of women’s recuperations of Epicureanism that has gone mostly unnoticed in broader philosophical circles (although the publication of the volume in which this essay appears suggests that this situation may be changing). In other words, the contemporary Lucretius boom, particularly in philosophy, has too often functioned to erase rather than to affirm the force with which a Lucretian position can and in fact did function in a feminist vein.

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Julie Giovacchini makes this insight possible again, in an essay with far reaching implications for today’s Lucretian turn. But her article is not only significant for the narrower context of Lucretius studies, or even just for the somewhat broader framework of the modern Lucretian revival. We could also consider Giovacchini’s work as a way of thinking otherwise the difficulties and tensions that have arisen within new materialist feminisms generally, which have struggled with recentering women’s specific demands and solidarities in a world of dehumanized and sometimes dehumanizing atoms, however vibrant these particles may be. At a moment of resurgent pandemics and the alarmingly vital movements of invisible (and visible) bodies, we might need more urgently than ever to be able to think about these bodies’  effects on specific human communities. Giovacchini makes it clear that within the Lucretian theorization of pleasure there lies the possibility of women’s social and political solidarity, and this even in (perhaps especially in) a time of danger and destabilization, when humans are acutely aware of their vulnerability in a cosmos that accords them no specific grace. The DRN ends with extraordinary poetic representations of the plague striking Athens. While commentators have long struggled with what to make of this seemingly pessimistic and viscerally unsettling conclusion to the work, today it is all too easy to read Lucretius as demonstrating the fragility of human societies under the pressure of an illness that destroys bodies and cuts at the bonds of human affections. All the more reason to excavate the many ways in which the DRN is specifically committed to rebuilding and strengthening the solidarities that provide humans with a way through, if not a way out of, a world that does not care for them specifically, but still enables care to flourish in specific ways and places. What is more, Giovacchini provides a way (back) into a history of writing by women that reactivates Lucretius (and Epicureanism) in the name of particularly feminine pleasures, not as part of a retreat from society, but as a reanimation of social bonds under the sign of joy. Might Lucretius be recuperated here (some might say co-opted) for a speculative feminism? Giovacchini suggests that he can and must be. It is precisely the entanglement of Lucretius’s legacy with ideas about femininity—and the importance of this entanglement for women as materialist thinkers and actors—that is overwritten by a modernity that spreads Epicureanism more widely than before, either in the name of materialist critique or under the auspices of materialist consumption, but at the same time does not acknowledge the central role played by femininity in Epicurean communities and pleasures. If Aristotle has arguably been more present in feminist and queer rewritings of a classical inheritance up until this point, Giovacchini suggests the need to return to Lucretius to see what continues to be left behind. At the same time, Giovacchini shows how the preponderance of men’s perspectives on Lucretius has so often rendered illegible or unspeakable the feminine dimensions of pleasure as Lucretius represents them. We can witness this in the eighteenth century—when enlightened men were often enamored of Lucretius as a thinker of a newly emboldened and secular desiring body, without considering actual women as Epicurean agents—even as we see it today. While Lucretius has regularly been cast as a thinker of heterodoxy, including and perhaps even

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especially in recent years, he has only rarely been taken as a direct challenge to the orthodoxy of men’s control over women—or rather, it is only rarely, if ever, that men reading Lucretius have been willing to take the Lucretian challenge to institutional authority and extend it to the domain of patriarchy. Giovacchini’s paper suggests the need to change our sense of the community to which the Lucretian argument is addressed—or could potentially be addressed. At the same time, she shows how assumptions about who constitutes a philosophical community to begin with—namely, cisgendered men—have so profoundly shaped responses to Epicureanism over time that their effects have become almost impossible to see. In her article, Giovacchini makes the case for considering women (and, I would argue, feminine bodies more generally) as subjects rather than objects of Lucretian pleasures. As she writes, “it is the presence of female sexuality and the description of female pleasure as a natural and essential circumstance of Venus herself which allow us to detect the coherence of the Epicurean conception of sexuality” (Sect. 7.4.3). If this insight has been obscured up until now, at least within the history of philosophy, Giovacchini affirms that it might be because “the difficulties in grasping the meaning of the Epicurean excerpts considered in the first part can be traced to the male perspective from which they are most often apprehended, which casts aphrodisia in the light of traditionally gendered erotic imagery” (Sect. 7.4.3). While the Lucretian image of the vagrant Venus, who presides over ejaculatory sexuality, has long been read as a model of masculine or male desire, a small but momentous shift in perspective—allowing us to see ejaculatory pleasure as in fact “mixed” or “joint”—gives us a means of reintroducing the pleasures of women in particular into the picture of Epicurean ethics. But Giovacchini goes further than this. In a gloss of the Roman reaction to Epicureanism, she concludes that “Epicureans who rejected political life were said to reject glory and therefore ‘light,’ since they preferred the darkness of a reclusive and pleasant life—a woman’s” (Sect. 7.4.3). Here we see a model that not only includes but centers women in the full materiality of their pleasures. These pleasures are not just individual but always potentially (or speculatively) communal. On the one hand, it is disturbing to see the extent to which women as philosophical subjects are written out of the history of materialisms and continue to play a relatively minor role in the contemporary Lucretian turn. The erasure of women’s pleasure from the Lucretian text works in tandem with the construal of harmonious and collective voluptuous community as immoral because effeminate. We can see the effects of this erasure particularly in the eighteenth century, when a new Lucretianism became philosophically à la mode, yet went hand in hand with virulent critiques of the effects of femininity on systems of governance and cultural exchange. But perhaps we see this still today, when Epicureanism holding within itself the possibility of a community of women could still seem like a vaguely absurd, if not utterly fantastic idea—a vision that remains to be activated. I would argue, though, that Giovacchini’s essay gives us a way back into a history in which various women over time attempted to actualize some of the possibilities that Giovacchini finds in Lucretius, albeit often cryptically and tentatively. I am thinking here of a long history of anglophone women’s writing either on or around

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Epicureanism and Lucretius—including Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681), who was the first person to translate the entire DRN into English, probably beginning in the 1650s, Aphra Behn (1640–1689), and Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673); and in the North American context, Frances Wright (1795–1852), whose A Few Days in Athens, being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum (1822) represents perhaps the first modern feminist defense of Epicurus. But women’s engagement with Epicureanism (and Lucretius) is not limited to the English-­ speaking world. We could list for instance Ninon de Lenclos (1620–1705); Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), a reader of Lucretius whose Epicurean leanings appear most visibly in her treatise on happiness; and of course Leontion herself, a scholar of Epicureanism and author of a critique of Theophrastus, now sadly lost. But Giovacchini’s argument not only points toward a different perspective on the past; it suggests a way forward to a new future. Giovacchini shows how Lucretius generates an anti-teleological reading of human pleasures that includes reproductive sexuality but does not necessarily prioritize it. Yet the three modes of pleasure that the Lucretian text takes us through—the relief of sexual tension presided over by the vagrant Venus, reproductive forms of sexuality, and what Giovacchini calls “the type of philia nourished by serene conjugality” (Sect. 7.4.3)—retain, in the second and third modes, the image of the human couple as a key emblem of social harmony and cohesiveness. How can Lucretianism be marshaled for other visions of community, including communities of women? Here we must remember the ways in which Lucretius has been so often mined as a source for thinking about bonds (and pleasures) between and among men. We need to turn this tendency on its head in the name of a speculative feminism that reclaims its place within the reception of Epicureanism, but does not stake all of its potential on what has come before. Can we work toward a vision of collective harmony in which “all sensation is true” (Sect. 7.2.1)—a key Epicurean insight—and in which the philosophical and affective bonds among women are given priority? I think that this détournement of the Lucretian legacy is not only permissible but necessary now. Venus is both a feminine figure of pleasure and a figure of feminine pleasure specifically. Her power, with its ability to both harmonize and enliven, is moreover tightly linked to that of poetry itself, which traverses the apparent divide between language and the body, matter and letter, image and substance. What might this power mean to our sense of the entanglement of bodies in the world? What can and should come of the centering of the feminine body in this vision? Lucretius has arguably long been used by cisgendered men as a means of experimenting with a whole set of feminine and feminizing pleasures without centering feminine subjects. Perhaps reimagining these experiments for women is a task not for scholars alone but for future generations of poets and artists. Either way, Giovacchini’s convincingly argued article makes legible and palpable a new kind of materialist conversion, not only through the critique of patriarchal modes of reading, but through an invitation to women to take up the Lucretian challenge—to move beyond the “fiery battlements of the world” toward a voluptas that is truly and actively shared (Lucr., DRN I 73, trans. 1995).

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References Primary Source Lucretius. (1995). On the nature of things: De rerum natura (A. M. Esolen, Trans.). The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Secondary Sources Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press. Campbell, G. (2009). Lucretius reaches the mainstream. The Classical Review, 59(1), 115–117. Coole, D., & Frost, S. (Eds.). (2010). New materialisms: Ontology, agency, and politics. Duke University Press. Diderot, D. (1875). Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron et sur la vie et les écrits de Sénèque pour servir d’introduction à la lecture de ce philosophe. In J. Assézat & M. Tourneux (Eds.), Œuvres complètes de Diderot. Garnier Frères. Giovacchini, J. (2021). Sexual freedom and feminine pleasure in Lucretius. In I.  Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Goldstein, A. J. (2017). Sweet science: Romantic materialism and the new logics of life. University of Chicago Press. Gordon, P. (2012). The invention and gendering of Epicurus. University of Michigan Press. Greenblatt, S. (2012). The swerve: How the world became modern. W.W. Norton & Company. Johnson, R. J. (2017). The Deleuze-Lucretius encounter. Edinburgh University Press. Lezra, J. (2018). On the nature of Marx’s things: Translation as necrophilology. Fordham University Press. Lezra, J., & Blake, L. (Eds.). (2016). Lucretius and modernity: Epicurean encounters across time and disciplines. Palgrave Macmillan. Nail, T. (2018). Lucretius I: An ontology of motion. Edinburgh University Press. Palmer, A. (2014). Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance. Harvard University Press. Passanante, G. (2011). The Lucretian Renaissance: Philology and the afterlife of tradition. University of Chicago Press. Serres, M. (2018). The birth of physics (D.  Webb & W.  Ross, Trans.). Rowman & Littlefield International. Wright, F. (1822). A few days in Athens, being the translation of a Greek manuscript discovered in Herculaneum. Longman & Co. Natania Meeker  is associate professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Voluptuous Philosophy: Literary Materialism in the French Enlightenment (2007) and the co-author, with Antónia Szabari, of Radical Botany: Plants and Speculative Fiction (2020), both published with Fordham University Press. She is currently at work on a book on femininity and materialisms in and around the eighteenth century, tentatively entitled Illusion Without Error.

Part V

Bardaisan of Edessa and Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate, Nature, and Freedom

Chapter 9

Destiny, Nature and Freedom According to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias: An Unknown Aspect of the Controversy Against Determinism Izabela Jurasz

Abstract  The relationship between Bardaisan the Syriac (150–221) and Greek philosophy remains the object of several hypotheses. In the past, Bardaisan’s teaching has already been compared with Stoicism and Platonism. Some points in common with Aristotelianism have only been recently suggested by scholars. The present article provides an in-depth analysis of a doctrinal theme for which Bardaisan was well known in the Greek-speaking world: his anti-fatalist polemic deployed in the Book of the Laws of Countries. In this dialogue, in the course of which his disciples put forward various questions, Bardaisan’s answers show a certain resemblance to the theses of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise On Fate, written against the determinism supported by the Stoics. A detailed analysis of the two texts reveals the extent of the similarities (and differences) between them, particularly in the approach to the notions of nature, freedom, and destiny or fate. Keywords  Bardaisan · Alexander of Aphrodisias · Aristotle · Stoicism · Destiny · Freedom · Nature · Astrology

9.1  Introduction The name of Bardaisan (150–221), the Christian scholar of Syriac origin, rarely appears in philosophical studies. Ancient authors and modern scholars disagree on how to classify the work of this complex author, which represents the philosophical and religious syncretism of late antiquity. As far as the fragmentary preservation of his oeuvre allows us to ascertain, Bardaisan combined elements borrowed from Greek philosophy with Jewish Christianity, Gnosticism, and the astrological beliefs I. Jurasz (*) Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université), Paris, France © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_9

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of the Chaldeans, creating a unique system that deserves recognition for the intricate tapestry it weaves from different philosophical threads.1 Numerous attempts have been made to bring Bardaisanite teachings closer to the main philosophical doctrines of his time, Stoicism and Platonism—the only ones rarely but explicitly mentioned in bardesanite sources.2 In contrast, the connection between Bardaisan’s teaching and Aristotelianism is difficult to envisage, because we have no information about such a connection. The oldest preserved Syriac translations of Aristotle, mainly concerning the logical corpus, date from the beginning of the sixth century.3 Although Aristotle’s reception probably began as early as the fourth or fifth century in the school of Edessa-Nisibis, Syriac writings contemporary with Bardaisan belong to a rhetorical culture rather than a philosophical one.4 Therefore, Aristotelian elements in Bardaisan’s teaching would be significant for the history of Aristotle’s reception. The influence of Aristotelian philosophy on Bardaisan’s doctrine has already been pointed out by Albrecht Dihle, but without a comparison to the treatise On Fate by Alexander of Aphrodisias (150–215). Dihle notes that Bardaisan, in evoking human beings’ likeness to God, refers to the connection (inspired by Aristotle) between nature, destiny, and freedom.5 Recently, a similar observation has been formulated by Éric Crégheur (2004, pp. 27–28; see also Poirier & Crégheur 2020, pp. 54 and 62) and Daniel King (2010c), who proposed—each in their own way—a comparison between the Book of the Laws of Countries (BLC), a dialogue written by a disciple of Bardaisan, and the treatise On Fate by Alexander of Aphrodisias, his contemporary. Nicknamed “the Exegete,” Alexander of Aphrodisias was one of Aristotle’s greatest ancient commentators, and his work had a profound impact on the reception of Aristotelianism among Greeks, Arabs, and Latins.6 Compared to Alexander, 1   About the Gnostic Bardaisan, see Aland (1970) and Bianchi (1971). About Bardaisan’s Christianity, in connection with the heterodox Christianity of Edessa, see Drijvers (1966), Camplani (1998, 2003–2004, 2015, 2016), and Possekel (2004, 2009, 2012, 2014). For the defence of Bardaisan’s orthodoxy see Ramelli (2009a, b, c, 2016). About Bardaisan as an astrologer, see Nau (1899, 1907), Levi della Vida (1921), and Crégheur (2004). 2  For the philosophical approach to Bardaisan’s doctrine, see Furlani (1937), Beck (1976, 1978), Teixidor (1992), Poirier (2006), Ramelli (2009b, c), King (2010c), Camplani (2019), Jurasz (2017, 2018a, b, 2019). 3  See Hugonnard-Roche (2004), Teixidor (2003), King (2010b), and Fiori and HugonnardRoche (2019). 4  See Brock (1999), Drijvers (1995), Camplani (2019), and Arzhanov (2019). 5  Dihle (1987, pp. 20–21, 1989, pp. 165–167) interprets the Bardaisanite doctrine as essentially anti-gnostic. On the anti-gnostic content of the BLC, see Amand (1945, pp. 229–233) and Krannich and Stein (2004, pp. 207–208). 6  Translations of some of Alexander’s writings into Syriac were made in the ninth century, by Ḥunyan ibn Isḥāq. In a Syriac manuscript of the sixth or seventh century, a Syriac summary (epitomê) of Alexander’s treatise On the Principles of the Universe (preserved only in Arabic) was recently discovered. This epitomê was formely attributed to Sergius of Reš’aina (Miller 1994; King 2010a, c; Fiori 2010). For the repertoire of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ works, see GouletAouad (1989).

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Bardaisan is a marginal author whose status as a philosopher remains uncertain. The similarities between the BLC and certain theses formulated by Alexander in his treatise On Fate should not encourage gratuitous speculation on the existence of direct contact between the two authors. They allow, however, to consider the possibility of contacts between Bardaisan and the circle of Alexander and his masters, two of whom—Sosigenes of Alexandria and Adrastus of Aphrodisias—were astronomers.7 This would place Bardaisan in a long tradition of “astrologization” of Aristotelian biology.8 The presence of Bardaisanism in this tradition could be more than episodic, because—according to a text by Diodorus of Tarsus (330–393)— even in the fourth century there was an affinity between Bardaisanism, astrology and probably Aristotelianism in their conception of the relationship between nature and destiny.

9.2  Bardaisan the Philosopher—An Improbable Hypothesis? Nothing confirms that Bardaisan was in contact with Alexander—or with any other philosopher. We know nothing about his intellectual education and very little about his life, despite a number of ancient testimonies, both critical and complimentary. Julius Africanus (d. 240) was fascinated by his meeting with “Bardaisan the Parthian (Βαρδησάνης ὁ Πάρθος)” at the court of Abgar, king of Edessa (ruled 178–212). He describes an extremely skilled archer, but also “a wise archer (σοφός τοξότης)” who strove to calculate the range of the arrows and was able to draw a quasi-portrait with arrows shot with uncanny precision (Cestes I 20). Two centuries later, Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339) called Bardaisan “a very competent man and good dialectician (ἱκανώτατός τις ἀνὴρ […] διαλεκτικώτατος)” (HE IV 30, 1) whose eloquence attracted many disciples. According to Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403)—who counts him among the heretics—Bardaisan was nevertheless “an excellent man (ἄριστός τις ἀνήρ)” (Panarion I 56, 1). Sozomen (d. 450) speaks of Bardaisan and his son Harmonius in similar terms: they were men “of excellent education (ἐλλογιμώτατοι)” who composed in Syriac hymns in Greek meters and musical modes (HE III 16, 5). Among the Syriac authors, Severus Sebokht (d. 667) values the astrological knowledge of Bardaisan, “an Aramaic philosopher, a man highly educated in all things of this kind.”9 We do not know how Bardaisan acquired his knowledge of philosophical and religious doctrines. According to the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (d. 1199), a late source, Bardaisan studied under a pagan priest from Hierapolis who taught him 7  On Alexander’s masters, see Goulet-Aouad (1989, p. 126). On astrology and philosophy in the age of Alexander, see Fazzo (1988). 8  On the “astrologization” of Aristotelian biology in Alexander of Aphrodisias, see Freudenthal (2009) and King (2010c). 9  Fragment edited by Nau (1907, p. 239). This fragment is later taken up by George, Bishop of the Arabs (d. 724).

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religious songs (Michael the Syrian ed. 1899–1904, vol. 1, text pp. 109–110; trans. pp. 183–184). Ancient authors more or less agree on this oriental and pagan origin of Bardaisan, locating his first education in the pagan environment, most probably among the Chaldeans.10 It is not clear whether the term Chaldean is related to ethnicity or to membership of the Zoroastrian priesthood, the Magi. When Bardaisan speaks in the BLC of the “art of the Chaldeans” to which he once adhered, he refers to the learned, astrology-based divination practices, without mentioning anything else about his past (BLC 25).11 Javier Teixidor (1994, pp. 55–56) tries to associate this laconic comment with one of the Chaldean schools in eastern Syria, if not Babylon; there is however nothing in the Bardaisanite documentation to support this assumption. The same holds true of the attempts to trace back the origin of Bardaisan’s philosophical knowledge: he could have studied Greek philosophy in Antioch or Apamea, though the information is far too scant to allow for sound verification. Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 457) writes that Bardaisan’s son, Harmonius, studied Greek in Athens, which perhaps indicates the extent of Bardaisan’s contacts with the Greek world (Theodoret of Cyrus, Haer. fab. com. PG 83, col. 372, 33–35). Not all remarks on Bardaisan’s philosophical knowledge were admiring. For Ephrem the Syrian (d. 373), interest in pagan philosophy was in itself proof of heresy; in his use of the word, the term “philosopher” is almost an insult. However, the eminently philosophical interest of Bardaisan’s work caught his attention. Ephrem only undertook the analysis of Bardaisan’s logical and physical theses because he perceived their theological significance. Bardaisan the philosopher is for him but the mirror of Bardaisan the heretic: fundamentally in error, no matter the subject. Here is how Ephrem speaks of this “Aramaic philosopher”12: But the Aramaic Philosopher made himself a laughing-stock among the Arameans and Greeks, not only in that he was unable to state but also in that he did not really know the teaching of Plato. (Ephrem, Against Bardaisan’s “Domnus” in Prose Refutations ed. 1921, vol. 2, pp. 7, 45–8, 6; trans. pp. iii–iv)

This description closely adheres to a certain type of anti-heretic discourse, where opponents are presented as inspired more by the teachings of philosophers than by the Christian Scriptures and, to make matters even more scandalous, as unable to

 The oriental origin of Bardaisan is often confused with his training with Chaldean astrologers. Thus, Eusebius describes Bardaisan as “a man of Syrian origin (ἀνδρὸς Σύρου μὲν τὸ γένος), who pushed himself to the top of Chaldean science (ἐπ’ ἄκρον δὲ τῆς Χαλδαϊκῆς ἐπιστήμης ἐληλακότος)” (PE VI 9, 32). Jerome (Adv. Jovinianum II 14; PL 23, col. 317) and Porphyry (De abstinentia IV 1) call Bardaisan “Babylonian.” Elsewhere, Porphyry calls him “Mesopotamian” (De Styge, fr. 7, 2). (Pseudo-)Hippolytus of Rome garbles his name into “Ardesianes (Ἀρδησιάνης)” (Philosophumena VI 35, 7) and talks about “Bardaisan the Armenian (Βαρδησιάνης ὁ Αρμένιος)” (VII 31, 1). 11  For the term “Chaldean,” see Poirier (2006, pp. 768–770). 12  This name appears a second time in the discourse Against Mani (Prose Refutations, ed. 1921, vol. 2, p. 225, 25), but the irony is less obvious there. The composition of the collection of Prose Refutations and its attribution to Ephrem were analyzed by Nakano (2009, pp. 441–451). 10

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follow these profane teachings properly (Le Boulluec 1985, pp.  288–301). Here, Ephrem uses the same reasoning as a key to the controversy on the notion of the incorporeal that opposes Bardaisan to the Middle Platonist philosopher Albinus (fl.  150). This controversy provides Ephrem with an opportunity to show that Bardaisan is in fact a bad philosopher, unable to understand the arguments of his opponent. Criticism of Bardaisan the philosopher makes the accusations against Bardaisan the heretic even stronger. Ephrem’s attitude was decisive for the way Bardaisan and his doctrine were judged for centuries to come. By presenting Bardaisan as a disciple of Marcion and a master of Mani, Ephrem broke with the attitude of earlier Greek authors, for whom Bardaisan remained a man of admirable wisdom—even if they considered him a repentant Valentinian, they did not forget his merits as an apologist and anti-­ Marcionite polemicist.13 Curiously enough, Ephrem ignores, or pretends to ignore, Bardaisan’s Valentinian past and creates his own successio haereticorum, where Bardaisan is a disciple of Marcion and a master of Mani. Nevertheless, this heresiological project was an extraordinary success: Bardaisan ceased to be perceived as an eclectic scholar and became a heretic, not only for Syriac authors, but also for Arabs who counted Dayṣāniyya (Bardaisanites) among the dualists, alongside Marcionites and Manicheans.14 Bardaisan’s transformation into a heretic entailed consequences on two levels, both of which weighed heavily upon the later interpretation of the philosophical ideas of Bardaisanism. First, Bardaisan as a historical figure was permanently associated with Marcion and Mani, completely obscuring his links with Valentinian Gnosticism and his anti-Marcionite polemics. As a result, Bardaisanism came to be understood as a dualist doctrine.15 Second, Bardaisan’s entire doctrine as reinterpreted by Ephrem from the theological point of view—or, more precisely, from the point of view of Nicene orthodoxy—was classified as Christian heresy. For all these reasons, the comparison of Bardaisan’s teaching with Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise On Fate has not been considered by specialists in ancient philosophy and has only recently been considered by specialists in Syriac literature.

 Eusebius of Caesarea, HE IV 30, 3; (Pseudo-)Hippolytus of Rome, Philosophumena VI 35, 7 and VII 31, 1; Vita Abercii 33–38 and 70; Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion II 56; Jerome, De viris illustribus 33; Comm. In Hoseam, PL 25, col. 902; Comm. In Naum, PL 25, col. 123; Ep. LXX; Theodoret of Cyrus, Haer. fab. com. I 22. 14  On the Arab sources of Bardaisanite dualism, see Nau (1907), Drijvers (1966, pp.  200–207), Vajda (1966), Madelung (1981), Ramelli (2009b, c), and Crone (2012). 15  On Bardaisan’s dualism, see Bianchi (1971) and Jurasz (2018a).

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9.3  The Book of the Laws of Countries and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Fate The Book of the Laws of Countries (BLC) is without doubt the most important and best-known text from the Bardaisanite corpus.16 The Syriac text in its current version is transmitted in a single manuscript dating back to the seventh century (London, British Library, Add. 14658).17 The BLC is a dialogue between Bardaisan and his disciples, one of whom, named Philippus, is the narrator. This structure suggests that the text was written by a disciple, though before the death of the master. Four centuries most likely elapsed between the writing of the text and the production of the manuscript. During this period, the BLC was translated into Greek and the testimonies of this translation are varied.18 Their diversity and, above all, their anteriority to the current Syriac text prompted researchers to question the genesis of the BLC and to propose several hypotheses concerning its drafting.19 As for the text contained in the BL Add. 14658 manuscript, it does not seem to involve any substantial changes to the Bardaisanite doctrine. One wonders why the BLC was included in a larger collection of philosophical texts in the BL Add. 14658 manuscript20: is it because of its connection with Greek philosophy, as Han J. W. Drijvers (1966, p. 76) thinks, or is it rather because of its ethical content, as Henri Hugonnard-­ Roche (2007, pp.  281 and 290) suggests? These two answers are not mutually exclusive, because the BLC addresses the complex question of the relationship between freedom and destiny—also called necessity, astral fatality, or providence— and belongs to the philosophical tradition of anti-fatalist discourse.  The BLC editio princeps was made by Cureton in 1855 (pp. 1–21 [Syriac numbering]), with an English translation (pp. 1–34). The BLC was also translated into English by Drijvers in 1965. The critical edition of the Syriac text was made by Nau in 1907 (with a Latin translation) and in 1931. The French translation of the BLC was also carried out by Nau in 1899 and by Poirier & Crégheur in 2020. There are two German translations of the BLC (by Merx in 1863 and by Krannich and Stein in 2004), as well as two Italian translations (by Levi della Vida in 1921 and by Ramelli in 2009a, b, c). 17  This manuscript was purchased in 1841–1843 with several others by Henry Tattam from the Deir al-Suryan Monastery in Wadi al-Natrun, Egypt (Cureton 1855, pp. i–xv). Another part of the manuscript contains a Syriac adaptation of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise On the Principles of the Universe (Miller 1994; King 2010b; Fiori 2010). 18  The main Greek examples are two long BLC quotations kept by Eusebius of Caesarea (PE VI 10, 1–10 and 11–48). Lists of “the laws of the countries” can be found in Pseudo-Clement (Recognitiones IX 19–29), Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus (Erotapokriseis 108, 1–16), and George Hamartolos (Chronikon I 37, 23–39, 10). The BLC has also inspired the anti-Marcionite polemic in Vita Abercii 33–38 (Jurasz 2019). 19  The summary of this debate and the conclusions on which there is a consensus are given by Amand (1945, pp.  234–349), Drijvers (1966, pp.  59–76), Camplani (1998, pp.  526–545), and Ramelli (2009c). 20  Ms. BL Add. 14,658 contains, among other things, the translations and commentaries of the Categories of Aristotle by Sergius of Rešʿayna, several translations of Greek authors (Porphyry, Themistius, Plutarch, Galen), collections of sentences and doxographies (Hugonnard-Roche 2007, pp. 279–291; King 2010c, pp. 180–185). 16

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The importance of the anti-fatalist discourse was noted by Daniel King (2010c), in his analysis of the manuscript BL Add. 14658, allowing him to shed light on the relationship between Bardaisan and Alexander or, more generally, between Bardaisan and the Aristotelian tradition. King says that “Bardaisan’s unusual doctrine of Fate is directly dependent on Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Fate, especially in their bringing together the notions of Fate and Nature, which is in turn dependent on the cosmological model we have been describing” (p.  199). Indeed, King describes several cosmological texts contained in the BL Add. 14658 manuscript and shows that such a collection could easily have been made in Edessa in the sixth– seventh century, as a testimony of the propagation of certain philosophico-literary traditions in Syriac (p.  180). In his perspective, Bardaisan’s doctrine of fate and nature is included in the manuscript because of his cosmology: “quasi-gnostic” and “quite different from that of the Aristotelian tradition, which knew of no beginning of the universe,” but nonetheless similar to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ cosmological doctrine (pp. 198–199). The comparison between the BLC and Alexander’s treatise On Fate is inseparable from the ancient philosophical tradition of anti-fatalist argumentation, whose origin goes back to Carneades (219–128).21 This largely explains the Greeks’ interest in Bardaisan’s writings, even if its scope is sometimes limited. In fact, the Greek authors—like Pseudo-Clement or Pseudo-Caesarius—cite above all Carneades’ argument of νόμιμα βαρβαρικά, highlighting the diversity of customs among the different peoples of the οἰκουμένη. This argument was brilliantly put forward by Bardaisan in his defence of human freedom.22 The witnesses of the reception of this part of the BLC show that there was a close link between the influence of Greek philosophy on Bardaisan and the influence of Bardaisan’s thought on Greek philosophy (Jurasz 2019). Nevertheless, we will leave aside this long section of the BLC on the customs of different peoples—so appreciated by the Greeks—as is it not relevant for the study of the relationship between the doctrines of Bardaisan and of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Bardaisanite teaching on destiny hinges on three elements: destiny (interpreted in the narrow sense of astral determinism), nature (in the sense of natural determinism), and freedom (mainly human freedom). As we will see, similar themes are found in the works of Alexander on destiny. However, the anti-fatalist polemic encompasses a long list of themes, each of which can be approached in a different way. Eusebius touches upon this diversity of themes and means in Book VI of the  The teaching of Carneades is attested to—independently of Bardaisan—by Cicero, Philo of Alexandria, Ambrosiaster, Favorinus of Arles, Sextus Empiricus, Firmicus Maternus, and PseudoClement (see Boll 1894, pp. 181–188). Carneades’ refutation includes also other points, namely (1) the impossibility of an exact observation of the sky at the moment of birth; (2) the different fortunes of those who were born at the same time, under the same constellations; (3) the collective death of those who were born neither at the same time nor under the same constellations (see Amand 1945, pp. 55–60). 22  On Bardaisan in the tradition of anti-fatalist polemic, see Boll (1894, pp.  181–188), Amand (1945, pp. 228–257), Dihle (1981, 1989, and his other works), Hegedus (2003, 2007), Crégheur (2004), Poirier (2006), Ramelli (2009a, b, c), Possekel (2012), and Poirier & Crégheur (2020). 21

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Praeparatio Evangelica, where he quotes Bardaisan after Alexander of Aphrodisias. Eusebius’ argument against fatalism is based on a doxography that brings together the opinions of pagan philosophers and of Christian authors. He deploys each author’s views according to what distinguishes them from the others: the arguments of Oenomaus of Gadara (PE VI 7) are a refutation of divine power over humans; those of Diogenianus (PE VI 8) are against the etymology of the term εἱμαρμένη; Alexander of Aphrodisias (PE VI 9) brings the arguments based on Aristotle’s theory of causality and explains the relationship between nature, destiny, and human freedom; Bardaisan (PE VI 10) adds his enumeration of “the laws of countries”; finally, Origen (PE VI 11) supplies the arguments from the Scriptures. Eusebius deserves recognition for including Bardaisan in this doxography, even if he chooses from his doctrine only elements that are less expounded by the other authors; namely, the catalogue of distant peoples and their customs, which proves how ridiculous it is to attribute the diversity of mores to the influence of the stars. This choice has heavily influenced the perception of Bardaisan’s doctrine.23 In order to compare Bardaisan’s teaching on destiny with the teaching of Alexander, we need to consider their respective ways of approaching three elements: destiny, nature and freedom. The following analysis of the BLC will focus on the three questions that mark the progress of the dialogue between Bardaisan and his disciples, one of whom in particular—Awida—is strongly influenced by the astrological and fatalistic doctrines of the Chaldeans.24 He initiates an exchange that can be reduced to the three following issues: 1st question (BLC 8–14): Could God create humans so that they could not sin? 2nd question (BLC 15–22): Does evil not come from our nature? 3rd question (BLC 23–33): Does evil not come from fate?

The first question is theological, the second concerns nature, and the last concerns destiny. These three questions are likewise discussed by Alexander of Aphrodisias in his treatise On Fate (Περὶ εἱμαρμένης), but not in the same order nor in the same way.25 Alexander begins (chap. 1–6) with a presentation of the Peripatetic doctrine  The passages of Bardaisan and the entire treatise of Alexander of Aphrodisias are part of Hugo Grotius’ miscellany, Philosophorum sententiae de fato et de eo quod in nostra est potestate collectae partim et de graeco versa per Hugonem Grotium (1648). In 1824, Johann Konrad Orelli took over Grotius’ edition, in a version limited to the texts of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardaisan, and George Gemistus Plethon. 24  Awida calls Bardaisan his “master” and admits that he wants to learn, but he starts by interviewing his friends, because he is ashamed of Bardaisan (BLC 4). Bardaisan addresses him as “my son” (BLC 2). 25  Alexander of Aphrodisias’ doctrine on fate and providence is delineated above all in two treatises: On Fate (edited by Thillet in 1984) and On Providence (edited by Thillet in 2003); the latter is preserved in its entirety in Arabic and partially in Greek. To these treatises are added four of the Quaestiones, written in line with the tradition of Alexander (Fazzo & Zonta 1998; Sharples 1983). The treatise On Fate is dedicated to the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, which places its drafting between 198 and 209, shortly before the composition of the Book of the Laws of the Countries. However, there is no direct evidence that Bardaisan knew Aristotle’s doctrine through Alexander’s treatise. 23

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on fate, insisting on the absence of any clear stance with regard to destiny in Aristotle’s own work. Alexander therefore proposes to approach the issue from the point of view of the theory of causality. After that, he goes on to present the various Stoic theories concerning human behaviour and confronts them with factual observations (chap. 7–21). Finally, he proceeds to a critical analysis of the arguments to which he responds (chap. 22–38). Among these arguments, there is also a theological digression on divine prescience (chap. 30–31).26 At the heart of these arguments is the relationship between nature, fate, and freedom. Inspired by Aristotle, Alexander considers destiny as a final cause. And because nature also acts as a final cause, he identifies destiny with nature (chap. 6).27 However, this identification does not lead him to consider nature as another form of necessity, but rather leads him to show that nature, like fate, does not act universally. The same attitude is reflected in the Bardaisanite dialogue.

9.4  T  heological Question: Could God Create Humans in Such a Way That They Could Not Sin? This question asked by Awida opens the dialogue between Bardaisan and his disciples. It refers to the fundamental issue regarding destiny: is there a divine, almighty and omniscient cause responsible for the organization of the world? This question is par excellence theological; it is equally applicable in the case of religion of one God and of different forms of polytheism. However, Alexander reduces this theological problem to a small digression on divine prescience (On Fate 30–31), without asking the question in the manner of Bardaisan. Moreover, Alexander would not have formulated this question in the same way. He understands the divine in the Aristotelian sense, as a whole of eternal and incorruptible causes, both ontological and physical at the same time. In this sense, he does not deem it necessary to refer to polytheistic beliefs to develop his anti-fatalist demonstration. Anti-fatalist discourse had already been given a certain theological flavour by its first proponent Carneades, who developed his arguments against the teachings of Chrysippus (scholarch of the Stoa from 230 to 206). According to Chrysippus, εἱμαρμένη (fate) designates the one Cause, also called Zeus, Logos, Nature, Providence, Fatality, Destiny, or Cosmic Law.28 Jean-Baptiste Gourinat summarizes Chrysippus’ notion of destiny in three points: “Fate (1) is defined as a warp of causes whose weft is inviolable—the metaphor takes up and distorts the traditional image of the thread of destiny spun by the Fates (Parcae); (2) is explained by the

 This organization of the text is proposed by Sharples (1983) and Thillet (1984).  This idea does not only come from Aristotle, but also from Theophrastus (Thillet 1984, pp. cii–cvi). 28  There are about a hundred fragments of Chrysippus related to his treatise On Fate (SVF II 912–1007). His conception of εἱμαρμένη forced him to revise his physical and ethical theses. 26 27

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fact that the universe is entirely traversed by the breath that unifies it; (3) regulates the universe in a rational way because this breath is divine and rational” (2007, p. 80; my trans.).29 Such a conceptualisation of destiny turns it into the only universal principle, both physical and theological, because “the common nature and the common reason of this nature are identical to destiny, providence, and Zeus” (Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis 34  =  SVF II 937).30 Carneades considered these Stoic theories as an expression of popular religious thought—all oracles and divinatory practices were for him the height of ridicule (Amand 1945, pp. 43–49).31 How did this criticism find its way into the views of the Christian Bardaisan? How did this philosopher explain the fact that humans are created sinners without simply rejecting the idea of an almighty Creator God—omnipotent and therefore implicitly responsible for everything that happens in the world? Bardaisan is not a fierce opponent of the thesis that fate comes from God and this is especially obvious in his answer to the question: could God create humans in such a way that they could not sin? Bardaisan begins by explaining how the world is organized: For observe the sun, the moon, and the celestial sphere, and all the other creatures which are greater than us in some respect: the free will over themselves (ḥarutā d-nepšhon) has not been given to them, but they are all bound by the order (puqdānā) to do only what has been ordered (pqd) to them and nothing else. […] All these things serve and are subject to one order (puqdānā), all are the instruments of the wisdom of God who cannot be wrong. (BLC 8; ed. 1907, col. 544)32

Bardaisan highlights the existence of an order (puqdānā) that is uttered by God. This divine order—like the one contained in “Let there be light!”—refers to celestial bodies, the earth, the sea, the winds, and the mountains. Here Bardaisan reasons in a way similar to Philo of Alexandria, who speaks about divine providence as the generating and directing cause of the universe (Philo, Provid. I 24–30; 42–44; 75). Like Philo, Bardaisan adopted the Stoic notion of a divine order that concatenated created things, of an εἰρόμενος λόγος that organized them (Philo, Provid. I 33).33 Bardaisan explains in what way humans are a part of this order, but differs from other creatures thanks to the divine gift of free will “for man was made in the image of God.” With these words Bardaisan refers not only to Gen 1:26, but also to the arguments already used by Philo of Alexandria. Although the latter recognized the existence of universal providence, he gave humans a special place in creation

 See also the synthesis of the Stoic teachings on destiny and freedom, especially in Chrysippus (SVF II 974–1007). On Chrysippus’ theses concerning fate and providence, see Bréhier (1951, pp. 170–194 and 203–211). 30  According to Bréhier (1951, pp. 173–174), Chrysippus elaborates a single principle of explanation of things, both scientific and religious. 31  Most of Carneades’ argument—particularly against divination—is described by Cicero in his De divinatione II. 32  Unless otherwise noted, all translations of the BLC are mine. 33  The Stoic idea of law—Zeus’ word—that drives the course of the world is found in Arius Didymus (fragment preserved by Eusebius, PE XV 15, 6 = SVF II 528). 29

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because of their faculty of thought (διάνοια), which makes them similar to God and allows them to choose between good and evil (Philo, Deus 47–50; Provid. I 45).34 What makes the parallel between Philo and Bardaisan even closer is their polemic against absolute fatalism that elevates God as the sole cause of the universe. They both believe that a monotheistic doctrine is not necessarily fatalistic. The providence, omnipotence and omniscience of the Creator allow enough room for the freedom of creatures—especially human beings. However, Bardaisan also develops an original argument: he thinks that all living beings, and not only those endowed with reason, must possess a certain degree of freedom: “Know, however, that even the things I said are subject to the commandment are not completely deprived of all freedom and, because of that, will all be subject to judgment on the last day” (BLC 9; ed. 1907, col. 548). Regarding this issue, Philo and Bardaisan take diverging paths. The argument of divine judgment is particularly important in Bardaisan’s explanations. It differs from Philo’s opinion that justice would make no sense if human beings did not have the freedom to be good or evil, and from Alexander of Aphrodisias’s argument that the determination of human behaviour by destiny contradicts every idea of the law and makes its exercise unnecessary (On Fate 35–36).35 These diverging views highlight the originality of Bardaisan’s solution, which extends the judgment to the entire universe and proposes, for the first time, his curious theory of universal freedom: The elements (estuksē) are not judged, O Philippus, by what is immutable in them, but by what they have power over (mšallṭin). Thus, beings (ityē) are not deprived of their nature when they are set in order, but of their own vigour, diminished in the mixing of one with another; and they are subject to the power (ḥaylā) of their Creator. They will not be judged by what makes them submit, but by what is proper to them. (BLC 10; ed. 1907, cols. 548–551)

Bardaisan thus corrects the Stoic thesis of fate as a chain of causes. Certainly, there is a divine universal order in which all beings are “instruments of God’s wisdom,” but there is also “power,” something that is “proper” to creatures and upon which they can exercise their freedom. The introduction of the extensive notion of judgment and the presentation of the universal order as a kind of “law” to be observed results in a supplementary objection from Awida: how can we speak of judgment if God’s commandments are difficult for human beings to fulfil (BLC 11–13)? Bardaisan’s answer further develops his argument and illustrates the difference between what is “submitted”—i.e. what depends on the strength of the body—and what is “proper” to human beings—i.e. what depends on the soul’s will. For God has not commanded humans to carry heavy burdens, but to do good and flee from evil (BLC 12). In addition, Bardaisan seems to share the ethical conviction—expressed in particular by Aristotle—that all

 Most of Philo’s anti-astrological argumentation can be found in the treatise De Providentia I 77–88; see Bréhier (1925, pp. 261–271). 35  On freedom of choice, see On Fate 13 and 25–28. 34

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human action tends towards the good that is within our reach. His position is reminiscent of the opening sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics: “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim” (Eth. Nic. I 1, 1094a1–3, trans. 1999).36 Awida’s questioning still focuses on a single claim. If it now seems possible to refrain from doing wrong, he continues to ask, “who can do good?” (BLC 13). In his answer, Bardaisan insists that “the good is proper to humans.” This statement contradicts Marcion’s anthropological theses, according to which creation, the work of the Demiurge, has an “evil nature and is composed of evil matter.”37 An argument similar to that of Bardaisan can be found in Tertullian, who makes human ontological and ethical goodness depend on the perfection of the Creator.38 Thus, Bardaisan’s answers apply to questions raised within the Christian community, but they also have a broader philosophical scope.

9.5  A  nthropological Question: Does Evil Not Come from Our Nature? The implied association between human nature and evil is denounced by Philippus— the narrator who intervenes to ask the second question of the debate: does evil not come from human nature? This second question directs the debate towards a problem that is both Christian and more broadly philosophical. Han J. W. Drijvers (1966, pp. 80–81) notes the return of the term “nature (kyānā)” in the debate, because the question concerns humans’ natural inclination (men kyāneh) towards sin: “for if it were not natural for him to sin, he would not sin” (BLC 15). Bardaisan’s answer begins with an explanation of the notions of nature and freedom. It is “natural” for humans, he says, to experience a long series of “natural”—even biological—processes from birth to death. These are things that “happen to all humans and not only to all humans, but also to all animals that have life and some of these things also happen to plants” (BLC 15). Bardaisan insists on the universality of what comes from nature.39 However, if “natural” behaviours are common to all animals of the

 The first book of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the question of the good and happiness. On virtue and vice as dependent on the will of humans, see Eth. Nic. III 7, 1113b–1114b. 37  See the summary of the Marcionite doctrine by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III 3, 12). 38  Tertullian, Aduersus Marcionem II 8, 1; II 6, 3–4. For the anti-Marcionite polemic in the BLC see Drijvers (1966, pp. 76–95). 39  For Bardaisan, “nature” is rather universal. The BLC translators, however, notice a double terminology for “nature”: the Syriac transliteration of the Greek φύσις denotes nature in the general sense, and the Syriac term kyānā denotes nature in the individual and specific sense. See Nau (1899, p. 35), Drijvers (1966, pp. 66–67 and 81), Crégheur (2004, p. 92), and Poirier & Crégheur (2020, pp. 112–113). This point is important for the comparison between Bardaisan and Alexander, because for Alexander nature is individual above all. 36

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same species, the same cannot be said for human beings who can freely decide what to choose, such as their food, their clothing and how to shape their relationships with their neighbours: Humans do not follow the same [laws], but, as far as their bodies are concerned, they follow nature like animals, and as far as their thoughts (reʿyānā) are concerned, they do what they wish—as free beings who are masters of themselves, and as images of God. (BLC 16; ed. 1907, col. 560)

Once again, Bardaisan uses the reference to humans as the “images of God” from Gen 1:26, specifying that this resemblance is realized in everything that depends on the human mind or thought (reʿyānā). In this case, the Syriac term reʿyānā corresponds to “thought (διάνοια)” in Greek.40 It seems that Bardaisan does not deem human rationality sufficient to deviate human beings from their natural inclinations, but rather bets on their ability to choose. The human beings are not restricted to do only what nature dictates to them. When comparing animals and humans, Bardaisan emphasizes the human ability to adopt different behaviours—to be aggressive like lions or gentle like sheep—and also to radically change their moral conduct, in the right or wrong direction. These examples also show that the mere fact of possessing reason is not enough to be able to choose. Bardaisan concludes: Behold, all humans differ from one another in their actions and in their desires. And those who submit to thought (reʿyānā) and advice (melkā) imitate each other. (BLC 17; ed. 1907, col. 563)

The particularities of the BLC’s conclusion, cited above, are made obvious when compared with their Greek version, quoted in the Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius of Caesarea.41 The Greek text contains significant emendations, and the most indicative of them concerns the terminology.42 Whereas in the Syriac text we read that the thought or mind (reʿyānā) gives humans freedom in the likeness of God, in the Greek text we only find the mention of the use of intellect (νοῦς) and reason (λόγος)—the likeness to God disappears from the argument. However, for Bardaisan—as for Philo—rationality is a corollary of the resemblance to God, precisely because it allows humans to choose (Günther 1978, pp. 15–20). This nuance is not found in the Greek fragment, which—according to the thesis shared by all philosophical schools—sees the difference between animals (ζῷον) and humans in the possession of reason (λόγος). Although the Greek translator does not entirely remove mention of free will in the behaviours that can be chosen, he considerably reduces its scope. The paragraph of the Syriac text referring to humans who “submit to thought and advice and imitate each other” (BLC 17) is not found as such in the Greek text, but rather is summarized in such a way that it says the opposite. We therefore read in Eusebius that  In the 2020 translation by Poirier & Crégheur, reʿyānā is always translated as “pensée” (thought).  This is the first of the two quotations of the BLC cited by Eusebius in PE VI 10, 1–10 (= BLC 15–17; ed. 1907, cols. 558–563). See Hilgenfeld (1864, pp.  81–84) and Ramelli (2009b, pp. 510–512 and 520–522). 42  For the comparison between the Syriac text and the Greek fragment see Jurasz (2019). 40 41

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“everyone, according to his own will, chooses his life, without imitating his neighbour, except where he wants it” (PE VI 10, 7; my trans.). This modification shows a desire to simplify Bardaisan’s doctrine which is probably considered too strange because of its astrological references.43 Now, we can ask again the question about the link between “natural” human behaviours and the origin of evil. Bardaisan’s answer comes from his reflection on thought and advice. What exactly is meant by “thought” and “advice” in BCL 17, cited above? Is Bardaisan saying that humans imitate each other in their behaviour? Or that they each follow their own “thought” and “advice”? The following sentence favours the second interpretation: humans do bad things when they “let themselves be deceived by their desires and led by their passions” (BLC 17). It is also clear that human rationality alone is not enough to realize the choice between good and evil. In this point, Bardaisan agrees with the teaching of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Alexander of Aphrodisias does not see this problem exactly in the same terms as Bardaisan did. However, his teaching could shed some light on some obscure points in Bardaisan’s argumentation. Alexander is said to have claimed that it is deliberation (τὸ βουλεύεσθαι) that adjudicates on the use of freedom. What then is the context of his remarks on deliberation? In the treatise On Fate, deliberation is an exercise of reason, decisive in the approach to human freedom. This freedom consists essentially in the possibility of choosing between opposites, which allows humans to be the principle of their own actions. Alexander thus opposes the Stoic theory, which reduces freedom to an “impulse” or “tendency” (ὁρμή). Impulse is inseparable from nature; in animals and newborns it corresponds to the instinct of self-preservation (the primary impulse) that pushes beings towards things appropriate to them (e.g. food) and makes them avoid what is harmful to them. The use of reason allows human beings to go beyond the first impulse and to recognize certain actions or things as “appropriate (καθῆκον),” ensuring the coherence of their moral conduct and guaranteeing the fulfilment of their human nature in conformity with the cosmic order.44 Stoics have developed a whole classification of impulses—practical or not, good or bad, present or future, etc.—in order to restore human actions to their conformity with nature, according to the rational purpose of providence. From this perspective, evil is defined as an irrational, impulsive, vicious behaviour; and Bardaisan seems to know this doctrine when he says that evil humans “let themselves be deceived by their desires and led by their passions” (BLC 17).

43  If the hypothesis that the Syriac text corresponds to the most ancient version of the BLC is correct, it must be concluded that Bardaisan’s thought was “hellenized” by the translator, if not by Eusebius himself. An analysis of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ quotations, placed just before those of Bardaisan (PE VI 9), reveals that Eusebius did not content himself to simply transcribing the texts. Thillet (1984, pp. cxxix–cxxxi) notes that Eusebius sometimes improves on the reading of the text; sometimes he summarizes a few lines, keeping the same vocabulary (these summaries explain missing or corrupt passages); he also adds transitions. 44  For Stoic ethical theses on impulses, see Gourinat (2007, pp.  42–60), Bénatouïl (2009, pp. 99–114) and Husson (2009, pp. 115–131).

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Faced with the Stoic theory of freedom, which reduces freedom to acting in confirmity with nature, it would not have been sufficient for Alexander to invoke human rationality, because the Stoics claim that rationality helps to discern what is in accordance with nature too. He needs to find another argument to prove that nature does not determine all human actions. To this end, he analyses the way of acting of very different beings—stones, animals, humans—in order to clarify what is deliberation and how free will works as a principle that allows for choice. On the one hand, deliberation is possible only for human beings, endowed with reason, and only pertains to certain subjects and actions; for example, eternal things that are necessary or independent of us do not require deliberation (On Fate 11). On the other hand, “We deliberate only about the things which are both done by us and future, clearly on the grounds that we will gain something from this [deliberating] for the choice and doing them” (On Fate 11, trans. 1983). Alexander’s goal is to prove that it is possible to make a real deliberate choice that is in accordance with nature and not determined by it nor by anything else: Deliberating is done away with according to them [i.e. the Stoics], as has been shown, and so clearly is what depends on us. For this is what all those who are not defending some position accept as depending on us—that over which we have control both to do it and not to do it, not following some causes which surround us from outside or giving in to them [and following] in the way in which they lead us. And choice, the peculiar activity of man, is concerned with the same things; for choice is the impulse with desire towards what has been preferred as a result of deliberation. (On Fate 12, trans. 1983)45

In this paragraph Alexander uses his knowledge of Aristotle in limiting deliberation to future actions that depend on us, but this solution does not seem convincing, insofar as deliberation—whatever its subject—is nevertheless accounted for in Stoic ethics.46 Alexander and Bardaisan face the same argument when one speaks of “deliberation (τὸ βουλεύεσθαι)” and the other of “thought (reʿyānā)”. The common point between Stoics and Chaldean astrologers would be to consider all actions as determined by nature. In response to this, Alexander (against Stoics) and Bardaisan (against Chaldeans) seek to demonstrate the existence of actions that depend on human beings and their freedom of choice. First, they show that there are several categories of living beings and that nature does not determine their behaviour in the same way. They agree that human beings are a special category because they are able to make deliberative choices. Here, Alexander does not give any example of this type of choice, unlike Bardaisan, who provides several: human beings can

 Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. III 1112a21–31. On Aristotle’s influence on this passage, see Sharples (1983, pp. 139–141) and Natali (2009, pp. 74–75). 46  For doubts about the relevance of this argument, see Long (1970, pp. 247–268) and Sharples (1983, p. 141). Natali (2009, p. 76) agrees with Sharples (1983, p. 142) that Alexander’s greatest merit is to transform deliberation into something other than a representation. 45

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choose their food, clothing, or sexual partners.47 These are therefore actions carried out in accordance with human nature, though only after a deliberate choice between opposites: for example, between eating or not eating certain foods. In both cases— Alexander’s and Bardaisan’s—the purpose of the argument is modest: to find a small space of freedom, an area where human action would not be entirely determined by external causes, where the human being would be master of himself.

9.6  Cosmological Question: Does Evil Not Come from Fate? The third question in the BLC, asked by all of Bardaisan’s disciples, directly concerns destiny: is it the source of good and evil? This is the central issue of the entire dialogue and Bardaisan answers in two steps. The first part of the answer explains the notions of freedom, nature and destiny, while the second reviews the customs of the many peoples, providing illustration for the first part. Bardaisan’s answer begins with a kind of doxography on fate.48 He first quotes (1) the opinion of Chaldean astrologers who attribute to the influence of destiny—of the stars, to be precise—everything that happens to men; then, he mentions (2) “others” who say the opposite and make everything depend on the will of humans and on chance; he ends with (3) “others” who still recognize human freedom, seeing in misfortunes a sign of divine punishment. Bardaisan’s views do not correspond to any of the three opinions mentioned above. However, in each of them he finds something correct and something false. He takes as his starting point the widespread conception of destiny professed by the Chaldeans. He amends it as follows: Let us add a few words to show that fate does not dominate everything. Indeed, this very thing called destiny is an ordered organization (ṭaksā-u d-marditā) that has been given by God to the governors (šaliṭānē) and the elements (estuksē). This organization and order moves the intelligences (maddʿē)49 in their descent to the soul, and the souls in their descent to the bodies, and what causes the displacement is called destiny (ḥelqā) and horoscope (bēt yaldā) of the compound that has been screened and purified for the benefit of what, by the grace and mercy of God, remains and will remain until the end of the world. (BLC 20; ed. 1907, col. 572)

The Syriac terminology in this passage is not easy to understand. It is useful to begin by defining destiny using two terms—ṭaksā and marditā—which are here translated as “ordered organization,” with reference to the organization of celestial

 “There are some who eat meat and no bread and others who distinguish food from meat. There are some who do not eat the flesh of any animal alive. Others unite with their mothers, sisters and daughters, while others do not themselves approach women” (BLC 16; ed. 1907, col. 560). 48  This doxography was studied by Poirier (2006). After (1) the Chaldeans, the two anonymous groups correspond to (2) the Epicureans and (3) the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Christians. 49  The singular in the manuscript is a mistake of the copyist. In his 1965 translation of the BLC, Drijvers translates maddʿē as “spirits.” 47

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bodies.50 Whereas ṭaksā comes from τάξις in Greek, marditā is a technical term for the course of celestial bodies. Moreover, the term šaliṭānē (just like the leaders, mdabbrānē), refers to the planets as celestial powers, exerting influence over the sublunar world. Further on, the terms “destiny” and “horoscope” are treated as synonyms.51 One can see that Bardaisan borrows the notion of destiny based on astral determinism from the Chaldeans, but he corrects its absolute scope by introducing two elements: God the Creator, and nature. God is the author of this “ordered organization,” while nature is the actor: It is enough for you to know that every time nature is disturbed in its rectitude, this disturbance is caused by fate, because the principles (rišē) and the leaders (mdabbrānē), on which the influence called horoscope depends, are opposed to each other. Those on the right are called auxiliaries of nature (mʿaddrin la-kyānā). […] Those on the left are called bad (bišē). (BLC 21; ed. 1907, col. 576)

In the system conceived by Bardaisan, only God and nature can escape fate, each in a different way. God is the architect of the organization of the universe; but how can nature be neither totally subject to the influence of the stars nor identical with destiny? Bardaisan does not say what “nature” is, but a good number of examples of what “happens by nature” suggest that it is a kind of principle of generation and corruption. However, insofar as its activity consists in “driving (dbr)” natural bodies, it resembles the planetary “leaders” or “rulers,” the mdabbrānē. It can be said that it represents an order parallel to that of the stars. Thanks to this concept, Bardaisan is able to break the hegemony of fate, which is elevated to the rank of a unique principle by the Chaldean astrologers he mentions. In order to properly assess Bardaisan’s views here, one should bear in mind that they are meant to be a correction of absolute astral determinism—Bardaisan does not say that this destiny does not exist, he simply says that its power is not absolute. Bardaisan determines the limitation of the reach of fate by speaking of the “body led by nature,” and by saying that nature “is not constrained or helped by fate […] in all the things it does one by one” (BLC 20; ed. 1907, col. 572). Nature is a kind of natural necessity whose role is to limit the absolute power of astral destiny. As for the Creator God, He does not suppress destiny either: He is placed above it. God is the architect of the heavenly hierarchy, the source of power exercised by the “leaders” and by nature. As God is located beyond natural necessity and astral necessity, He limits the two latter forces by giving all beings a certain degree of freedom—for the purpose of judgment. It is remarkable that neither God nor nature are substitutes for destiny: God, because He wants all creatures to have freedom; and nature, because

 This expression is translated in quite different ways: “mode d’action” (trans. 1899), “ordo est cursus” (trans. 1907), “course and order” (trans. 1965), “ordine di processi” (trans. 2009). For the meaning of marditā, see Nau (1899, p. 19). 51  The expression translated by “horoscope” literally means “place of birth” or “nativity” (Nau 1899, p.  42, n. 3). Nau compares this choice of translation with the vocabulary of Firmicus Maternus. He is followed by Drijvers, who talks about “native horoscope,” but not by Ramelli, who prefers “nascita.” 50

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it does not drive souls.52 In the system thus conceived, only the relationship between nature, destiny, and freedom lends itself to a comparison with Alexander of Aphrodisias’ theses.53 Alexander takes the Aristotelian theory of causes as his starting point and observes a similarity between nature and destiny—both act as the final cause. He concludes that: […] we are left with saying that fate is in the things that come to be by nature, so that fate and nature are the same thing. For what is fated is in accordance with nature and what is in accordance with nature is fated. (On Fate 6, trans. 1983)

Alexander essentially relies on the arguments from Aristotle’s Physics (II 192b; 198b10–199a15) and Metaphysics (1015a), in which nature is conceived as a principle and cause of movement for beings, with a view to an end specific for each. From nature comes what happens “most often (ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον)”54 but not necessarily. Based on this conception of nature, Alexander develops an argument against the universality of destiny, without wishing to entirely abolish destiny. He therefore has to prove the existence of causes besides fate and of things that do not depend on it—or do not always depend on it. If there is in the things that come to be in accordance with nature that too which is contrary to nature, as also in the things in accordance with craft [that which is contrary to craft], what is contrary to fate will also have place in the things that come to be in accordance with fate, so that if what is contrary to nature has a place and is not an empty expression, what is contrary to fate, too, will have a place in the things that come to be. (On Fate 6, trans. 1983)

Things “contrary to nature” happen “when nature is prevented by an external cause in its own work” (On Fate 6, trans. 1983). By analogy, what is “contrary to fate” will occur when an external cause prevents the action of fate. This external cause is human freedom. To all evidence under the influence of Galen, Alexander draws here a parallel between the natural qualities—determining the life of the body—and the qualities of the soul—in particular the previously mentioned deliberative faculty. The ability to reason, typical of the soul only, is not enough to explain the phenomenon of human freedom, because freedom, according to Alexander, consists in the possibility of being the principle of one’s actions, using natural dispositions (On Fate 27). These elements—derived from a theoretical discourse dominated by the Aristotelian theory of causes—resemble Bardaisan’s teachings on freedom from fate and nature. There are many differences between Alexander and Bardaisan, mainly due to the fact that they do not have the same opponents, although these opponents share the doctrine of the universality of fate. In Alexander’s case, there is but a brief allusion  On the anthropological aspect of Bardaisan’s teachings, see Drijvers (1966, pp. 86–87), Ramelli (2009b, pp. 166–167), Camplani (2015, pp. 267–270), and Jurasz (2019). 53  Concerning the notion of nature, the comparison between Bardaisan and Alexander is not straightforward. See above, note 39. 54  It is an Aristotelian formula (see Bonitz 1870/1955, s.v. πολύς 618a–b) taken up by Alexander (Thillet 1984, p. cii).

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to astral determinism (On Fate 6, 169, 23–25),55 whereas Bardaisan attributes a fatalistic doctrine only to astrologer opponents and deals with theological questions that are completely alien to Alexander (BLC 20).56 Their discourses are therefore constructed in different contexts and intended for different audiences. And yet, Alexander and Bardaisan are, in their time, the only ones to articulate views on destiny and nature, drawing parallels between the two, juxtaposing or assimilating them. For both authors, nature—although its laws are universally valid—acts as a counterexample to universal destiny. Bardaisan expresses this idea in the following words: In short, we humans have all behaved in the same way by nature and in different ways by fate; finally, everyone behaves as he wishes with the help of freedom. (BLC 19; ed. 1907, col. 571)

Alexander and Bardaisan agree that nature can be disturbed in its actions, if only by disease. Alexander speaks of what is “contrary to nature,” while Bardaisan attributes this kind of disorder to the influence of the stars. However, fate can help nature as well as hinder it—Bardaisan distinguishes between good (“right”) and bad (“left”) celestial “leaders” (BLC 21). This distinction brings him even closer to Alexander of Aphrodisias—to his notions of nature and of the unnatural, of destiny and of unnatural destiny. As for freedom, Bardaisan points out that it was given with a view to carrying out a judgment (BLC 10; 21; 22), but, insofar as it consists in being able to choose among what is permitted by nature, it can moderate the reach of fate: We have just seen how fate can harm nature, we can still see that human freedom pushes fate and obstructs it, but not in everything, just as fate could not completely destroy nature either. These three things: nature, destiny, and freedom, must therefore preserve their own existence. (BLC 22; ed. 1907, col. 579)

Bardaisan is therefore building a system in which three “causes”—nature, destiny, and freedom—are involved, none of which is absolute and independent from the others. Their relationship is well summarized by Awida, who develops the argument about nature and freedom. By saying that “humans do not sin because of their nature and not all humans behave in the same way,” Bardaisan recognizes that nature does not determine absolutely. As for freedom, he admits “that humans have their free will and that by their nature they are driven towards good and far from evil, for which reason it is with justice that they will be judged on the last day” (BLC 23; ed. 1907, col. 579). The comparison between the BLC and On Fate shows that the similarities between Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias exist in numerous fields: theology, anthropology and cosmology, and also biology and ethics. Moreover, Bardaisan’s doctrine is more influenced by Aristotelianism than it might seem. It is,  For a commentary on this passage, see Sharples (1983, p. 128).  On this doxography, see Poirier (2006). As a Christian, Bardaisan is involved in the anti-Marcionite controversy. Moreover, he considers God to be the only one entirely and sovereignly free, while all His creatures are subject to His will. 55 56

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however, an unusual Aristotelianism, mixed with elements from other doctrines— mostly Stoicism, Christianity and Gnosticism.

9.7  A  n Epilogue to Alexander and Bardaisan: The Critique of Bardaisanism by Diodorus of Tarsus The Greek world seems to have known little of this Aristotelian influence in Bardaisan’s work, since the fragments of the BLC translated into Greek and preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica simplify the text to the detriment of clarity in the reflections on the relationship between fate, nature, and freedom. However, Diodorus of Tarsus managed to identify similarities between the Aristotelian and the Bardaisanite views on nature and freedom in a polemical commentary where he reported the anti-fatalist doctrine of Bardaisan. Diodorus of Tarsus’s criticisms of Bardaisanism were included in an imposing treatise entitled Against Fate, the complete text of which is now lost, although its summary can be found as a part of the Bibliotheca by Photius (c. 843).57 It is Photius’ habit to give critical advice: he informs his reader that Diodorus, of course, strives to refute those who believe in fate, but that he does not pay too much attention to presenting the positions of his opponents clearly and precisely (Photius, Bibliotheca Codex 223, 208b).58 Not a single one is mentioned by name, with the exception of Bardaisan and Bardaisanites. Other opponents are described as “astrologers” or as “those who think the sky is spherical.” The last descriptive appellation is reminiscent of the Aristotelians (Arist., De Caelo II 4; Pellegrin, 2009). Curiously, the Bardaisanite doctrine is quoted immediately after the introduction: Thus, in his fifty-first chapter, at the same time as he [i.e. Diodorus of Tarsus] endeavours to shake up the belief in fate, he also refutes Bardaisan’s opinion. It is a half-crazy idea half worked out. Indeed, it [Bardaisan’s teaching] liberates the soul from fate and from what is called the horoscope by keeping its free will, but it submits to the government of fate the corporeal and all that concerns it: I mean wealth and poverty, illness, life and death, and everything that does not depend on us. It [Bardaisan’s teaching] professes that all these elements are the effects of fate. Diodorus, a science-loving and zealous author, refutes this Bardaisan with clarity and vigour by proving that he states in his words half of the error  This part of the Bibliotheca has not been the subject of an in-depth study—a fact deplored by its editor, René Henry (Photius ed. 1965, pp. 175–176). Diodorus’ work received excessively harsh criticisms from Amand (1945, pp. 461–479), who refused to see in it any originality and noticed no resemblance to Bardaisan, Alexander of Aphrodisias, or Aristotelism in general. On the other hand, the summary of Photius’ chapter by Ramelli (2009b, pp. 269–290) leads to the surprising conclusion that the difference between Diodorus and Bardaisan was “più nominale che reale,” because Diodorus blames Bardaisan only for having kept the name of fate, even empty of its content. Thus, “Diodoro rimane perfettamente d’accordo con Bardesane” (pp. 284–285). She means that Bardaisan is criticized for this single point and only in one chapter. However, considering that Bardaisanism is the only doctrine whose name is retained by Photius, its role cannot be limited to a brief mention in a single book in a polemical treatise of eight books and fifty-three chapters. 58  These remarks by Photius are interpreted in a pejorative sense by Amand (1945, pp. 469–474). 57

9  Destiny, Nature and Freedom According to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias… 153 about destiny, while in fact he confirms it entirely, since ordinarily most bodily affections and activities occur and fully develop under the action of the soul and by its cooperation as well as by its consent. (Photius, Bibliotheca Cod. 223, 208b18–32; ed. 1965, pp. 8–9; my trans., based on Henry’s French translation)59

Photius praises the relevance of Diodorus’ criticisms, which denounce only half of the Bardaisanite ideas as false. According to Diodorus, Bardaisan’s error consists in attributing power over the body to fate and in removing only the soul from its dominion. It seems that Diodorus, when he speaks of the power of fate over the body, targets the Bardaisanite notion of nature. As we have seen from our reading of the BLC, Bardaisan elevates nature to the rank of principle—or cause—analogous to fate in its mode of action. Indeed, the comparison between the BLC and Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Aristotelian theses shows that Bardaisan is not far from identifying fate with nature. However, according to him, nature is no proof that fate does not exist, but only that not everything is driven by fate. Without rejecting astral determinism, he corrects its extreme formulation: nature and free will limit the absolute scope of destiny, but do not completely abolish destiny. As a Christian, Bardaisan attributes the existence of destiny and nature to the will of God, and sees freedom as God’s order for all creatures subject to His judgment. Diodorus’ criticism of Bardaisan concerns precisely his refusal to exclude destiny or astral determinism from his own system. Photius’ summary suggests that Diodorus was discussing many of the theses expressed in the BLC, particularly those concerning human nature. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate Diodorus’ arguments directed at Bardaisan from those directed at the astrologers and the followers of the Aristotelian conception of the sky. In general, Diodorus’ disagreement with his opponents concerns the use of the term γένεσις. René Henry, publisher and translator of Photius’ Bibliotheca, explains that γένεσις is the “destiny set at the time of birth” and translates the word as “geniture” (Photius ed. 1965, p. 10).60 It is indubitably a technical term that refers to a kind of congenital fatality shared by all sentient beings: human beings, animals, and plants, the whole earth and each of its regions, as well as human communities (cities and nations). This use of the term γένεσις reminds us of how Bardaison speaks of “nature” in the BLC. He uses two different words: one is kyānā, which appears about thirty times, and the other is pwsys, the Syriac transcription of the  The other mention of Bardaisanite views can be found in the summary of the eighth and final Book: “So, after having dealt with these subjects in the fiftieth chapter, he moves on to the fiftyfirst. He confounds the followers of Bardaisan: they pretend to admit the veracity of the Prophets, they free souls from ‘geniture’ and recognize them as free, but they subject the body to the determinism [of ‘geniture’]. Indeed, wealth and poverty, illness and health, life and death, and everything that does not depend on us is, they say, the work of fate” (Cod. 223, 221b12–19; ed. 1965, p.  45; my trans., based on Henry’s French translation). The similarity between 208b23–26 and 221b12–19 suggests that the repetition is due to an error made by Photius. 60  In the fragments cited by Amand (1945, pp. 473–478), the term γένεσις remains in Greek, just like εἱμαρμένη. Ramelli explains the meaning of the term γένεσις as “disposizione degli astri alla nascita, cioè l’oroscopo” and twice translates it as “oroscopo” (2009b, pp. 271 and 286). This term appears more than a hundred times in Photius’ summary of Diodorus’ work. 59

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Greek term φύσις, which is only found twice. If—as Nau (1899, p. 35) proposes— pwsis refers to nature in the universal sense, the contexts of kyānā are too numerous and varied to understand it, as Nau claims, simply as “the nature of an individual.”61 However, it is certain that Bardaisan understands nature in a dynamic sense, as an activity or a process, and this brings his notion of nature closer to the meaning of γένεσις. It should also be noted that the term kyānā in Syriac means both “nature” and “what is innate.” Consequently, nature in the Bardaisanite sense can be associated with a certain use of the term γένεσις, which is the subject of Diodorus’ criticism. However, it is also clear that the kyānā of the BLC does not exactly coincide with γένεσις. The overview of the meanings of γένεσις suggests that it may be a concept without a clear referent, used by Diodorus to express an idea shared by several doctrines, whatever vocabulary they use. Moreover, the link between γένεσις and astral destiny is not clearly explained by Diodorus: they are probably two parallel but coordinated systems. In fact, the meaning of γένεσις varies from one book to another in Diodorus’ treatise. In the first two books Against Fate, Diodorus discusses the thesis that γένεσις is both primordial and immanent to living beings: it governs these beings but is not responsible for their creation. If the third book of Diodorus seems to be directed against astrologers and “those who say that the sky is spherical,” the next book is dedicated to the criticism of γένεσις. In Book IV, the γένεσις (“genesis”) of the earth and all its regions is referred to; the influence of the stars on this γένεσις (“genesis”) is well demonstrated. In Book V, we learn that the γένεσις (“geniture”) is hereditary and passes from masters to slaves and from superiors to subordinates; it also determines what we call the evolution of species. Diodorus criticizes both the idea that γένεσις (“geniture”) depends on the configuration of the stars and the idea that it directs beings in the same way as the stars. Book VI speaks of the γένεσις (“geniture”) that determines occupations, virtues, intelligence, opinions, and customs. In this section of the treatise, there are references to “barbaric laws,” but it is impossible to find any parallels with the BLC. The last books are devoted to astronomical and theological questions—this is also where the Bardaisanites who subject bodies to the determinism of γένεσις (“geniture”) are mentioned. Their views apparently raise theological problems, but Photius does not think it useful to report on them in any detail. The fragmentary and enigmatic nature of Photius’ summary does not allow us to say anything more about the form of the Bardaisanite doctrine which is the target of Diodorus’ criticism. What we know is that Diodorus associated the Bardaisanites with the Aristotelians, because both the astronomical theory of the spherical sky and the equation of nature and fate are linked to this philosophical tradition. This association confirms the proximity between the BLC and the philosophy of Alexander of Aphrodisias. In Diodorus one discovers an unknown step in a process described as

61  Nau proposes a distinction between “natural forces” for pwsys and “the nature of an individual” for kyānā. This distinction seems insufficient because, in fact, the word kyānā also applies to nature in its general sense. See above, note 39.

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the “astrologization” of Aristotle’s biology, started by Alexander of Aphrodisias and continued by Arab philosophers.62 Did Bardaisan and his disciples themselves contribute to this process by stimulating the association between Aristotelian ideas and the teachings of Chaldean astrologers? Acknowledgments  Many thanks to professor Carlo Natali for his valuable remarks and to professor David Lefebvre for bibliographical indications concerning Aristotle’s biology.

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King, D. (2010b). The earliest Syriac translations of Aristotle’s Categories: Text, translation and commentary. Brill. King, D. (2010c). Origenism in sixth century Syria: The case of a Syriac manuscript of pagan philosophy. In A. Fürst (Ed.), Origenes und sein Erbe in Orient und Okzident (pp. 179–212). Adamantiana: Texte und Studien zu Origenes und seinem Erbe, 1. Aschendorff. Krannich, T., & Stein, P. (2004). Das “Buch der Gesetze der Länder” des Bardesanes von Edessa. Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 8, 203–229. Le Boulluec, A. (1985). La notion d’hérésie dans la littérature patristique grecque, IIe–IIIe siècles (Vol. 2). Études augustiniennes. Levi della Vida, G. (1921). Bardesane: Il dialogo delle leggi dei paesi. Libreria di cultura. Long, A. A. (1970). Stoic determinism and Alexander of Aphrodisias De fato (I–XIV). Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 52, 247–268. https://doi.org/10.1515/agph.1970.52.3.247 Madelung, W. (1981). Abū ‘Īsā al-Warrāq über die Bardesaniten, Marcioniten und Kantäer. In H.  R. Roemer & A.  Noth (Eds.), Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Vorderen Orients: Festschrift für Bertold Spuler zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (pp. 210–224). Brill. Miller, D. R. (1994). Sargis of Res’ayna: On what celestial bodies know. In R. Lavenant (Ed.), VI Symposium syriacum  (pp. 221–233). Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 247. Pontificio Istituto Orientale. Nakano, C. (2009). Des rapports entre les marcionites et les manichéens dans un corpus éphrémien: S.  Ephrem’s prose refutations of Mani, Marcion, Bardaisan. In M.  A. Amir-Moezzi, J.-D. Dubois, C. Jullien, & F. Jullien (Eds.), Pensée grecque et sagesse d’Orient. Hommage à Michel Tardieu (pp. 441–453). Brepols. Natali, C. (2009). Alessandro d’Afrodisia (Tito Aurelio Alessandro). Il destino: Trattato sul destino e su ciò che dipende da noi: Dedicato agli imperatori (2nd ed.). Academia Verlag. Nau, F. (1899). Bardesane l’astrologue: Le livre des lois des pays. Ernest Leroux. Nau, F. (1907). Bardesanes: Liber legum regionum. In R. Graffin (Ed.), Patrologia syriaca (Vol. 2, pp. 490–658). Firmin-Didot. Orelli, J.  K. (1824). Alexandri Aphrodisiensis, Ammonii Hermiae filii, Plotini, Bardesanis Syri, et Georgii Gemisti Plethonis De fato quae supersunt Graece: ad codicum manuscriptorum editionum versionum fidem recensuit. Typis Orelli. Pellegrin, P. (2009). The argument for the sphericity of the universe in Aristotle’s De caelo: Astronomy and physics. In A. C. Bowen & C. Wildberg (Eds.), New perspectives on Aristotle’s De caelo (pp. 163–185). Philosophia antiqua, 117. Brill. Poirier, P.-H. (2006). Deux doxographies sur le destin et le gouvernement du monde: Le Livre des lois des pays et Eugnoste (NH III 3 et V 1). In L. Painchaud & P.-H. Poirier (Eds.), Coptica, Gnostica, Manichaica: Mélanges offerts à Wolf-Peter Funk (pp. 760–786). Peeters. Poirier, P.-H., & Crégheur, E. (2020). Le livre des lois des pays. Un traité syriaque sur le destin de l’“école” de Bardesane. Les Belles Lettres. Possekel, U. (2004). Bardaisan of Edessa on the resurrection: Early Syriac eschatology in its religious-­historical context. Oriens Christianus, 88, 1–28. Possekel, U. (2009). Die Schöpfungstheologie des Bardaisan von Edessa. In L.  Greisiger, C. Rammelt, & J. Tubach (Eds.), Edessa in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Religion, Kultur und Politik zwischen Ost und West: Beiträge des internationalen Edessa-Symposiums in Halle an der Saale, 14.–17. Juli 2005 (pp. 219–229). Beiruter Texte und Studien, 116. Orient Institut. Possekel, U. (2012). Bardaisan and Origen on fate and the power of the stars. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 20, 515–541. Possekel, U. (2014). Bardaisan of Edessa: Philosopher or theologian? Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum, 10, 442–461. Ramelli, I. (2009a). Origen, Bardaisan, and the origin of universal salvation. Harvard Theological Review, 102, 135–168.

9  Destiny, Nature and Freedom According to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias… 159 Ramelli, I. (2009b). Bardesane di Edessa. Contro il fato: Detto anche Liber legum regionum. Edizioni Studio Domenicano. Ramelli, I. (2009c). Bardaisan of Edessa: A reassessment of the evidence and a new interpretation. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies, 22. Gorgias Press. Ramelli, I. (2016). Bardaisan: A Christian Middle Platonist from Edessa and his reading of scripture in the light of Plato. In C. Horn & S. H. Griffith (Eds.), Biblical & Qur’ānic traditions in the Middle East (pp. 215–238). Eastern Mediterranean Texts and Contexts, 2. Abelian Academic. Sharples, R.  W. (1983). Alexander of Aphrodisias on fate: Text, translation and commentary. Duckworth. Teixidor, J. (1992). Bardesane d’Édesse: La première philosophie syriaque. Cerf. Teixidor, J. (1994). Bardesane de Syrie. In R. Goulet (Ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques (Vol. 2, pp. 54–63). CNRS Éditions. Teixidor, J. (2003). Aristote en syriaque. Paul le Perse, logicien. CNRS Philosophie, 152. CNRS Éditions. Thillet, P. (1984). Alexandre d’Aphrodise. Traité du destin. Les Belles Lettres. Vajda, G. (1966). Le témoignage d’al-Maturidi sur la doctrine des Manichéens, des Daysanites et des Marcionites. Arabica, 13, 1–38 and 113–128. Izabela Jurasz  is an associate member of the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université) and a scientific collaborator at the Oriental Institute of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve. She has obtained Ph.Ds in Oriental studies (Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome), in theology (Institut Catholique de Paris) and in philosophy (Sorbonne Université, Paris). She is the author of several articles concerning Bardaisan’s teaching and the reception of Greek philosophy in the Christian doctrine and in the Syriac cultural area. Recent bibliography: Plotin, les gnostiques et les chrétiens en débat, Théologie historique, Beauchesne (2021, forthcoming); “ītutā – ītyā / ītyē comme synonymes d’ousia dans la polémique d’Éphrem contre Bardesane,” Chora. Revue d’études anciennes et médiévales, 18–19, 515–544 (2020–2021); “Bardesane, un philosophe syriaque,” in E. Fiori & H. Hugonnard-­Roche (Eds.), Philosophie en syriaque, Études syriaques 16, Geuthner, pp. 65–127 (2019); “Plotinussyriacus? La doctrine néoplatonicienne de l’âme dans le dialogue Erostrophos,” Le Muséon, 132(3–4), 329–397 (2019); “Lectures gnostiques d’Empédocle: Marcion, Prépon et Bardesane,” Laval théologique et philosophique, 74(3), 375–405 (2018).

Chapter 10

How to Limit Fatalism? A Comparison Between Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan Isabelle Koch

Abstract  Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan, at the end of the second/beginning of the third century CE, are part of a cultural context where astrology, beyond popular or civic beliefs, is integrated into a cosmological reflection on the principles of reality. In such a context, they analyse the concepts of nature and free choice with the project of limiting the influence of fate, in the face of adversaries who submit everything to destiny (the Chaldeans for Bardaisan, the Stoics—and perhaps other deterministic currents—for Alexander). In both cases, the aim is not to deny but to recognise the causal power of fate, while nonetheless assigning it to a particular sphere of reality rather than the whole. In both cases, too, it is mainly through the relations between nature, fate and free choice that this restrictive assignment takes place. Here we will study, regarding a few points, the different strategies by which these two authors fit into the ancient anti-fatalist tradition and contribute to the emergence of the idea of free will in late antiquity. Keywords  Alexander of Aphrodisias · Bardaisan · Determinism · Fate · Nature · Free choice · Late antiquity

The analysis of relationships between nature, fate and free choice in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise On fate1 and in Bardaisan’s Book of the Laws of Countries2 aims at the same objective: to reject necessity while defending a coherent conception of destiny, in a context where astrology is no longer a subject of mockery as it  The book (hereafter DF) is quoted in Robert Sharples’ translation (1983), as will be the Mantissa (M). 2  The book (hereafter BLC) is quoted in Izabela Jurasz’s translation. 1

I. Koch (*) Centre Gilles Gaston Granger (CNRS—Aix-Marseille Université), Aix-en-Provence, France e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_10

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was with Carneades or Cicero, but becomes part of a cosmological reflection on the principles of reality and the causes of becoming. These two contemporary authors share the project to limit rather than deny influence of fate, in the face of adversaries who submit everything to destiny (the Chaldeans for Bardaisan, the Stoics—and perhaps other deterministic currents3—for Alexander). In both cases, it is a question of recognising the causal power of fate while assigning it to a particular sphere of reality, and not to the whole. In both cases, too, it is through the definition of the relations between nature, fate and free choice that this restrictive assignment takes place. However, the strategies are different. As Izabela Jurasz explains, Bardaisan takes fate in the narrow astrological sense, referring to the causality that the positions of the stars exert on our lives. His concept of nature applies to natural determinism, which rules terrestrial phenomena, especially biological ones. As living beings, humans are subject to this double causality, astral and biological, to which they add free choice, by which they are themselves a principle. The originality of Bardaisan is to propose a reciprocal co-limitation of these three principles. Fate and nature limit each other because their causalities do not go in the same direction: they are two orders that do not cooperate; they even antagonize each other. By disturbing the regularity of nature, astral destiny produces differentiation and variation in it: “In short, we humans have all behaved in the same way by nature and in different ways by fate” (BLC 19; ed. 1907, col. 571). Therefore, neither fate nor nature exercises absolute and total power of determination: the natural order is not necessary, since “every time nature is disturbed in its rectitude, this disturbance is caused by fate, because the principles (rišē) and the leaders (mdabbrānē), on which the influence called horoscope depends, are opposed to each other” (BLC 21; ed. 1907, col. 576); on the other hand, fate is often powerless to act on the natural order, because nature “is not constrained or helped by fate […] in all the things it does one by one” (BLC 20; ed. 1907, col. 572). To this co-limitation, Bardaisan finally adds another, due to human freedom: if we all behave in the same way by nature, and all behave in different ways by fate, “finally, everyone behaves as he wishes with the help of freedom” (BLC 19; ed. 1907, col. 571). Bardaisan thus limits the absoluteness of fate by the reciprocal independence and overlapping of three types of principles—fate, nature, free choice. Each produces its own effects, like parallel orders, according to the term proposed by Izabela Jurasz. I will speak instead—since parallels never meet—of distinct orders that interfere with each other. It is the interference of each principle in the sphere of the other two that limits the causal influence of all. Fate does not determine every event in our lives, nature does not regulate all our behaviours, and we cannot choose everything we want since the objects of deliberation are themselves circumscribed by the other two orders: “We have just seen how fate can harm nature, we can still see that

 On the identity of the anonymous opponents in DF, see Koch (2019, pp. 22–31).

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human freedom pushes fate and obstructs it, but not in everything, just as fate could not completely destroy nature either” (BLC 22; ed. 1907, col. 579). The strategy followed by Alexander is different, while also mobilising the analysis of the relations between fate, nature and choice. He advances a central thesis which immediately indicates that fate and nature are not two distinct orders between which interference would occur; there is identity between them: Fate and nature are the same thing. For what is fated is in accordance with nature, and what is in accordance with nature is fated. For it is not the case that man comes to be from man, and horse from horse, in accordance with nature but not in accordance with fate; rather, these causes accompany each other as if differing only in name. (DF 6; ed. 1892, p. 169, 18–23; trans. 1983a, p. 46)

The formula ὡς ἂν ἔχοντα κατὰ τοὔνομα μόνον τὴν διαφοράν can be read in two ways, according to an enlightening suggestion by Maddalena Bonelli.4 The first reading neglects the ὡς ἄν and takes φύσις and εἱμαρμένη as synonyms; the second takes into account the ὡς ἄν and excludes simple synonymy: the identity between nature and fate then means that the two terms have the same referent without having the same definition. To understand this identity, text 25 of the Mantissa5 offers some interesting elements. It attributes to Aristotle the thesis that “fate is nature” on the basis of two uses of the participle εἱμαρμένος in the Aristotelian corpus, which constitute precious textual auctoritates: as we know, εἱμαρμένη is nowhere to be found in Aristotle, which complicates the task of whoever wants to expose, as Alexander does,6 a genuine “Aristotelian” doctrine of fate. In Meteorologica, the term εἱμαρμένος refers to the relationship between sublunar phenomena and the seasonal cycles governed by astral revolutions. Mantissa 25 quotes the passage and interprets it as follows: Aristotle already mentions the name of fate (τοῦ τῆς εἱμαρμένης ὀνόματος) in the first book of the Meteorologica as follows: “But the cause of all these things must be supposed to be that, at fated times (διὰ χρόνων εἱμαρμένων), it comes about, just as winter does in the seasons of the year, a Great Winter in some great cycle.”7 And it seems that in these words he is saying that fate is nature (τὴν εἱμαρμένην τὴν φύσιν λέγειν)—for the fated times (οὗτοι γὰρ εἱμαρμένοι χρόνοι), the winter and [that] of the other things, are those whose reciprocal succession is natural, but not unalterable and necessitated. (M 25; ed. 1887, p. 186, 13–20; trans. 1983b, p. 114)

The duration of the seasons, their succession and their periodic return are διὰ χρόνων εἱμαρμένων. For Aristotle, the formula means that these temporal sequences, over the course of the year and from one year to the next, are neither variable nor 4  See Bonelli (2013, p. 96). She points out examples of the second reading in the commentary to the book Γ of Metaphysics (“causeˮ/“principleˮ, “oneˮ/“beingˮ). 5  On the Mantissa, a collection of texts by Alexander or his pupils, see Sharples (2004, 2008a, pp. 1–4). 6  DF 1, ed. 1892, p. 164, 13–14: “The book contains the opinion concerning fate and responsibility held by Aristotle” (trans. 1983a, p. 41). 7  Quoting Meteorologica I 14, 352a 28–31. “All these thingsˮ refers to the meteorological changes in the climate of a region, for example its desertification.

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random. They present a great regularity, the observation of which incites us to look for its cause: it is the movement of the sun on the ecliptic which induces orderly thermic variations, which in turn contribute to the generation and destruction of sublunar beings. This Aristotelian theory is summed up by the formula that “[m]an is begotten by man and by the sun as well (ἄνθρωπος γὰρ ἄνθρωπον γεννᾷ καὶ ἥλιος)” (Physics II 2, 194b13; trans. 1984).8 Alexander’s doctrine asserting the identity between fate and nature is therefore a way of clarifying the Aristotelian καί ἥλιος,9 noting that Aristotle himself sometimes qualifies as “fatedˮ the environmental effects that the annual movement of the sun produces, which have a vital influence on natural phenomena. The same conclusion is drawn from the second Aristotelian testimonium in Physics.10 These texts, if we give a strong meaning at εἱμαρμένος in them (something like “what comes to be by fateˮ), allow us to affirm, as Mantissa’s author does, that there is already in Aristotle a theory of the identity between fate and nature, which asserts that the regularity of generations and corruptions has, among its causes, celestial movements. Such a theory of fate, by causally linking the supralunar to the sublunar, leads to a rational re-reading of astrological discourses. Alexander brings it closer to the widespread opinion according to which […] men say that the first causes (τὰ πρῶτα αἴτια) of the coming-to-be of each thing in accordance with nature—that is, the heavenly bodies and their orderly revolution ( θεῖα καὶ ἡ τούτων εὔτακτος περιφορὰ)—are also causes of fate (τῆς εἱμαρμένης αἴτια). For the beginning of all coming-to-be (πάσης γὰρ γενέσεως ἀρχὴ) is the heavenly bodies’, in their motion, being in one type of position or another (ἡ τῶν θείων κατὰ τὴν κίνησιν ποιὰ σχέσις) in relation to things on earth. (DF 6; ed. 1892, p.  169, 20–26; trans. 1983a, p. 46)

Divine realities and cyclophoria are the primary causes of natural generation, and for this reason they are also said to be the causes of fate. That natural generations and corruptions depend on environmental conditions which ultimately find their cause in the circular movement of the stars is the well-known Aristotelian thesis that has been recalled. According to Alexander, this cosmological thesis leads to another thesis: as primary causes of the natural generation of each being, the stars and their revolutions are also causes of fate. This second thesis most probably refers to astrological beliefs (what “men sayˮ). By linking these two assertions, Alexander intends to justify these beliefs from a philosophical perspective. His strategy is not to challenge the astrological discourse as a ἀργὸς λόγος—or, worse, as a discourse of “religious charlatans”11—nor to refer it to an order foreign and parallel to that of nature; it consists in understanding it as a popular expression derived from the school doctrine which makes supralunar movements the primary (i.e. the most distant) causes of sublunar movements. Because of its widespread popularity, this  See also Metaphysica Λ 5, 1071a 13–17.  Connection treated as self-evident by Aristotle, who did not feel the need to explain it precisely (see Rashed 2011, p. 151). 10  See M 25 quoting Physics V 5, 230a 32; ed. 1887, p. 186, 20–26; trans. 1983b, p. 114. 11  See M 25; ed. 1887, p. 180, 14–33; trans. 1983b, p. 106. 8 9

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discourse functions as an ἔνδοξον that provides further evidence of the validity of the peripatetic theory of fate. If we accept the referential reading of the identity between nature and fate (same referent but different definition12), this peripatetic theory offers a double perspective on sublunar beings. Nature designates the regularity of natural phenomena as being the fruit of an immanent efficient causality, finalised by the realisation of εἶδος into distinct individuals; fate designates this same regularity as being produced (among other causes) by the perfection of celestial movements, mediated by seasonal cycles and their thermo-biological effects. This is why, according to Alexander, fate and nature are far from interfering and limiting each other, “rather, these causes accompany (συνοδεύει) each other.” The limitation of the power of fate thus comes not from the intermittent character of its opposition to the natural order, but from its belonging to that order, ontologically imperfect and as such deprived of necessity. So I will not, as Izabela Jurasz does, bring Alexander’s concepts of “contrary to nature” and “contrary to destiny” closer to the role that Bardaisan accords to the relative positions of the stars, in which “[t]hose on the right are called auxiliaries of nature (mʿaddrin la-kyānā) […] [t]hose on the left are called bad (bišē)” (BLC 21; ed. 1907, col. 576) and disturb nature. The planets on the left are a fatal cause that hinders nature (or human existence) by bringing into play a causality foreign to its own; in contrast, what is “contrary to nature” is not at all a fatal cause upsetting another order (nature or free choice) from outside. The παρὰ φύσιν, in good Aristotelian orthodoxy, arises from an internal resistance to the structuring power of εἶδος: the matter prevents εἶδος from actualizing itself properly in well-shaped individuals according to the standard of their species. On this pattern, Alexander builds the notion of “contrary to fate,” which makes sense within the framework of an ethical application of the concept of fate, based on the relationship between a moral character and the course of an existence to its end. For example, “the man who loves danger and is by nature bold (θρασεῖ φύσει) meets some violent death for the most part, for it is the fate of his nature (αὕτη γὰρ ἡ τῆς φύσεως εἱμαρμένη)” (DF 6; ed.  1892, p.  170, 21–23; trans. 1983a, p.  47). Observing several moral types, Alexander maintains that our character is our fate, because most events of our personal existence, with its successes and failures, depend on our ἦθος; and this existential fate is not a superior and inflexible force, it is one with our own nature, that is to say, a causality that moves us from the inside and admits exceptions.13 In this ethical sense of fate, Alexander introduces the concept of “contrary to fate” as referring to a principle of resistance, that is rational choice. The “contrary to fate” is illustrated by the ἄσκησις ἐκ τῆς φιλοσοφίας thanks to which Socrates, who was predisposed by his natural constitution to a dissolute life, made himself “better than his natureˮ (DF 6; ed. 1892, p. 171, 15–17; trans. 1983a, p. 48) and escaped his fate, thwarting the predictions of the physiognomonist Zopyrus. The rational choice is  Following Bonelli’s suggestion, see above note 4.  On the difficulties raised by the idea of a “natural character” in the Aristotelian ethical context in which Alexander claims to be, see Koch (2019, pp. 170–195).

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said to be παρὰ τὴν εἱμαρμένην because, within a human existence, it has the power to defeat the ethico-fatal determination of natural character, making us a “principle of actions (ἀρχὴ πράξεων)14” (DF 14; ed. 1892, p. 184, 16; trans. 1983a, p. 62)— and driving the understanding of such a principle towards a kind of unpredictability. In this way, the peripatetic theory of fate goes hand in hand with a reconfiguration of certain Aristotelian ethical concepts, which can be summarised by two features: it naturalises moral character and it accentuates the power of initiative, or even of rupture, attributed to choice. This turning point in Alexander’s position is echoed in the independence that Bardaisan ascribes to the free principle: “[A]s far as their thoughts (reʿyānā) are concerned, they [human beings] do what they wish— as free beings who are masters of themselves” (BLC 16; ed. 1907, col. 560). We can see here another mark of their common belonging to the ancient anti-fatalist or anti-­ determinist tradition, whose proponents contributed in various ways to the emergence of the notion of free will.15

References Primary Sources Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1887). Alexandri Aphrodisiensis praeter commentaria scripta minora. De anima cum mantissa (I. Bruns, Ed.). Supplementum aristotelicum II/1. G. Reimer. Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1892). Alexandri Aphrodisiensis praeter commentaria scripta minora. Quaestiones, De fato, De mixtione (I. Bruns, Ed.). Supplementum aristotelicum II/2. G. Reimer. Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1983a). De fato (S.  Sharples, Trans.). In S.  Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias, On fate. Text, translation and commentary (pp. 41–93). Duckworth. Alexander of Aphrodisias. (1983b). De anima libri mantissa XXII–XXV (S.  Sharples, Trans.). In S.  Sharples, Alexander of Aphrodisias, On fate. Text, translation and commentary (pp. 94–115). Duckworth. Aristotle. (1984). Physics (R. P. Hardie & R. K. Gaye, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford translation (Vol. 1). Princeton University Press. Aristotle. (1984). Meteorology (E. W. Webster, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford translation (Vol. 1). Princeton University Press. Aristotle. (1984). Metaphysics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle: The revised Oxford translation (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press. Bardaisan. (1907). Liber legum regionum (F. Nau, Ed. & Trans.). In R. Graffin (Ed.), Patrologia syriaca (Vol. 2, cols. 536–611). Firmin-Didot.

 This ἀρχή is a principle of equal choice between opposites and Alexander identifies it with human rationality: “[…] to be rational is nothing other than to be a beginning of actions […] which is equivalent to having in oneself a principle of both choosing one thing and not (ἀρχὴν τοῦ καὶ ἑλέσθαι τι καὶ μή); and both [i.e. to be rational, and to be ἀρχὴ πράξεων] are the same thing” (DF 14; ed. 1892, p. 184, 15–19; trans. 1983a, p. 62). 15  On this emergence through anti-fatalist or anti-determinist debates, see among others Bobzien (1998), Maso & Natali (2005), and Sharples (2008b). 14

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Secondary Sources Bobzien, S. (1998). Determinism and freedom in Stoic philosophy. Oxford University Press. Bonelli, M. (2013). Alexandre dʼAphrodise et le destin comme cause productrice. In F. Guadalupe Masi & S. Maso (Eds.), Fate, chance and fortune in ancient thought (pp. 83–101). Hakkert. Jurasz, I. (2021). Destiny, nature and freedom according to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias: An unknown aspect of the controversy against determinism. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Koch, I. (2019). La causalité humaine. Sur le De fato dʼAlexandre dʼAphrodise. Classiques-Garnier. Maso, S., & Natali, C. (2005). La catena delle cause. Determinismo e antideterminismo nel pensiero antico e in quello contemporaneo. Hakkert. Rashed, M. (2011). Commentaire perdu à la Physique dʼAristote (livres IV–VIII). Les scholies byzantines. Édition, traduction et commentaire. De Gruyter. Sharples, R. (2004). Alexander of Aphrodisias, Supplement to On the soul. Introduction, translation and notes. Duckworth. Sharples, R. (2008a). Alexander of Aphrodisias, De anima libri mantissa. A new edition of the Greek text with introduction and commentary. De Gruyter. Sharples, R. (2008b). Lʼaccident du déterminisme. Alexandre dʼAphrodise dans son contexte historique. Les Études Philosophiques, 86(3), 285–303. Isabelle Koch  is associate professor at Aix-Marseille University, France, and researcher at the Gilles Gaston Granger Center (CNRS). She studied at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris and has a PhD from the University Paris X Nanterre, and a “Habilitation à diriger des recherchesˮ from the University Paris I Panthéon-­Sorbonne. Her research focuses on Platonism and Christianism in late antiquity (Plotinus, Porphyry, Augustine); ancient ethics from Plato to Augustine; and debates around Stoic determinism, particularly in Cicero, Galen and Alexander of Aphrodisias. On these topics, she recently published two books as author—Sex and the City of God (Defaut, 2012), and La causalité humaine. Sur le De fato d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise (Classiques-Garnier, 2019)—and three books as editor or co-editor: Lire les dialogues, mais lesquels et dans quel ordre? Définitions du corpus et interprétations de Platon (Academia Verlag, 2013), Figures de l’identité d’Homère à Augustin (Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2014), and Negative Knowledge (Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2020).

Chapter 11

Bardaisan of Edessa on Free Will, Fate, and Nature: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Origen, and Diodore of Tarsus Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

Abstract  Against the backdrop of the relations between Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan and Origen, and of Diodore of Tarsus’ reading of Bardaisan, this article reflects on Bardaisan’s ideas towards free will, fate, and nature in the so-­ called Book of the Laws of Countries, based on Bardaisan’s Against Fate. With reference to the article by Izabela Jurasz on the comparison between Alexander and Bardaisan, I present the main topics that scholarship debates regarding Bardaisan and argue that Eusebius had already found important parallels between Alexander, Barsaisan, and Origen. Attention is paid to the strong affinities on crucial questions (including free will and eschatology) between Bardaisan and Origen, as established by recent research. These two comparisons—between Alexander and Bardaisan and between Origen and Bardaisan—reinforce one another. Bardaisan’s knowledge of parts of Philo’s oeuvre is also brought to the fore as an issue recently explored and in need of further investigation. Lastly, the article focuses on Diodore of Tarsus’ Against Fate, its indebtedness to Bardaisan’s Against Fate and generally his anti-­ astrological, anti-fatalistic arguments (indebtedness represented by arguments and rather unequivocal details), and its reproach to Bardaisan for maintaining the category of “fate,” albeit Christianized. Keywords  Bardaisan of Edessa · Origen of Alexandria · Alexander of Aphrodisias · Diodore of Tarsus · Free will · Fate · Nature · Christian Arabic anti-fatalism In parallel with Izabela Jurasz’ interesting article, I am delighted to return to the question of Bardaisan in the context of the present volume, which calls due attention to the contribution of women to the study of ancient and medieval philosophy. I. L. E. Ramelli (*) Durham University, Durham, UK Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK Max-Weber-Kolleg, Universität Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_11

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Along with Jurasz and myself, numerous scholars have turned their attention to Bardaisan in recent years, bringing to light findings that address, for instance, the culture of Bardaisan; his philosophical knowledge;1 the questions surrounding the Book of the Laws of Countries (BLC) and its content; the BLC’s relation to Bardaisan’s On/Against Fate and thought;2 the notion of Fate in Stoicism and fatalistic and anti-fatalistic arguments, and the discussion of the double terminology of nature in Bardaisan; Africanus’ portrayal of Bardaisan as “the Parthian”, and many other sources on Bardaisan; the dispute about the “incorporeals”;3 the accusations of heresy—Valentinianism, “Gnosticism” writ large, Marcionism, Manichaeism— levelled against Bardaisan; and so on. Having myself extensively argued for this in 2009b, I agree with Jurasz that the BLC seems to involve no substantial changes with respect to Bardaisan’s own doctrine. But Jurasz’ focus in her article on the comparison between Alexander of Aphrodisias and Bardaisan—without any implication of direct reading—is both stimulating and refreshing. Affinities as well as differences can be caught by attentive readers not only today, but also in antiquity. Indeed, I suspect that Eusebius found important parallels between Alexander, Barsaisan, and Origen, for it is surely no accident that he reported their arguments for free will one immediately after the other in his Praeparatio evangelica: those by Alexander in 6.9, those by Bardaisan in 6.10, and those by Origen in 6.11. The main questions debated in the BLC and in Alexander’s On Fate are the same. There are also, I would stress, original points in Bardaisan—such as his use of the Jews’ and the Christians’ observance of the laws of Moses and Christ, within his anti-astrological argument in response to the climatic argument. Indeed, in addition to the already existing anti-fatalistic lore, Bardaisan introduced a new core argument to refute not only the horoscope theory, but also that which considered each climatic zone to be governed by one heavenly body. The latter was a counter-­ argument devised by astrologers to refute the long-standing νόμιμα βαρβαρικά objection, used by Bardaisan himself. Bardaisan replied to that counter-argument by claiming that laws in one nation, within the same climate, can change (as they changed, for instance, when king Abgar became a Christian and prohibited a ritual mutilation in honor of Atargatis), and that Jews and Christians observe the law of Moses and that of Christ in whatever climate they happen to be. As I pointed out in 2009b, Bardaisan’s argument was adopted by other Christian thinkers. Other aspects make Bardaisan’s discourse different from that of Alexander’s. For instance, the anti-Marcionite and anti-Gnostic polemic against the doctrine of two gods, good and evil—which Bardaisan arguably develops at the beginning by supporting a

1  About “the philosophical approach to Bardaisan’s doctrine” (Sect. 9.1, n. 2), some important studies could be added: for instance Robertson (2017), Burns (2017), and Ramelli (2018a); also Crone (2012), Johnson (2013, pp. 207–209, 255, 284 and 364), and Hezser (2018). 2  That the BLC reflects Bardaisan’s thought is a point I have argued in detail. See Ramelli (2009b, esp. pp. 70–106), which examines Bardaisan, his philosophical and theological characterization, sources, and impact. 3  See Jurasz (2017), and Ramelli (2009b, pp. 32–40; forthcoming-b).

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metaphysical and theological monism4—is unknown to Alexander, who was no Christian and was not targeting Marcionites and “Gnostics.” Origen defended a strong monism against dualistic tendencies in Marcionism and Gnosticism, and Augustine seems to have employed such arguments derived from Origen to refute the dualism of the Manichees, as I argued in 2009a, 2013a and 2018a. Bardaisan was no Manichee, notwithstanding charges in this sense, although some of his followers became Manichaeans, and Diodore of Tarsus attacked Manichaeism: on this point, see below. In 2014, I proposed an original comparison—one that parallels that outlined by Jurasz between Alexander and Bardaisan—between Alexander and Origen, who in turn shows many points of affinity with Bardaisan. Alexander, indeed, has interesting similarities with Origen, including in the polemic against determinism, as I pointed out. Alexander and Origen, semi-contemporary philosophers and teachers of philosophy, composed the same kinds of works. Origen probably knew Alexander’s works, which were read at the school of Plotinus, his fellow-disciple at Ammonius Saccas’. Origen’s Περὶ ̓Αρχῶν was likely inspired by Alexander’s homonymous work. The phrase ἦν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν was used for the first time by Alexander and Origen: the latter imported it from the philosophical debate on the eternity of the world into Christian Trinitarian theology. Alexander may have influenced Origen’s notion of hypostasis. Moreover, Origen seems to have modified the Stoic doctrine of mixture in a way that comes close to Alexander and his criticism of that doctrine. The concepts of ὕλη/ὑποκείμενον and εἶδος in Origen are influenced by Aristotle and probably by Alexander.5 Both the presentation and the refutation of Stoic determinism are similar in Alexander and Origen. Alexander’s theology seems to have influenced Origen—as Proclus, I suspect, perceived. The doctrine of the soul and its existence in a body and the doctrine of the Ideas reveal remarkable parallels in Alexander and Origen. My research into Alexander and Origen supports the argument that Jurasz makes about Bardaisan and Alexander. These two sygkriseis, between Alexander and Bardaisan and between Alexander and Origen, are all the more important to be read together, in that Bardaisan and Origen are very close in their thought in many important respects and are often advancing the same polemics and theories. They even seem to share a metaphor—creatures’ paradigms as decorations on the Logos’/ Wisdom’s body in relation to Christ in creation—that, as far as we know, appears to be unique to them.6 The brief notes of comparison between Philo and Bardaisan in Jurasz’s article remind me of the problem of Bardaisan’s knowledge of parts of Philo’s oeuvre, as they were known to Origen shortly afterwards.7 This merits further investigation.

 See Ramelli (2009a, 2012, 2020a).  See Ramelli (2020b). 6  See Ramelli (2009a, 2018a). 7  See Ramelli (2018b). 4 5

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Eusebius simplified and possibly “Hellenized” Bardaisan’s ideas—the same was done by Philo in De vita contemplativa—while reporting the views of the Therapeutae.8 Jurasz observes: “This modification shows a desire to simplify Bardaisan’s doctrine which is probably considered too strange because of its astrological references” (Sect. 9.5). This is certainly plausible and was also done by Rufinus when he translated Origen’s works. I note that such revisions by Eusebius can also show a desire to assimilate Bardaisan’s doctrine to Origen’s thought, which Eusebius knew well, as we have seen above.9 This can be another strong motivation. Regarding Diodore’s treatise Against Fate, preserved in a summarized form by Photius (Bibl. cod. 223), it is important both because it draws a suggestive link between Bardaisan and Aristotelianism—relevant to the present investigation—and because it attacks fatalistic determinism, as does Bardaisan. Indeed, although critical of Bardaisan, Diodore—whose Greek reported text I examined in 2009b (pp. 142–160), and who was deeply acquainted with Origen as well—nevertheless praises Bardaisan because he frees the soul from Fate. In chapter 51, in which he demolishes the belief in Fate, [Diodore] also criticizes Bardaisan’s doctrine. This doctrine, indeed, is partially insane, so to say, and left midway (αὕτη δὲ ἡμιμανής τίς ἐστι καὶ ἡμίτομος). For, to be sure, Bardaisan liberates the soul from Fate and the so-called horoscope, and keeps its free will safe. However, he submits to the government of Fate the body and what concerns it, that is, richness and poverty, illness, life and death, and all that does not depend on us, and he teaches that all this is a work of Fate. (Photius, Bibl. Cod. 223; my trans.)

Note that Diodore wrote Against Fate, not Against Bardaisan. Diodore’s Κατὰ εἱμαρμένης bears the same title as Bardaisan’s work, in the form transmitted by Epiphanius and Theodoret; for both upheld free will against fatalistic determinism. Diodore is only critical of Bardaisan in chapter 51 for having kept the name of “fate,”10 although he did subordinate it to Providence. This long treatise—its full title being Κατὰ ἀστρονόμων καὶ ἀστρολόγων καὶ Εἱμαρμένης (Suda s.v. Diodore of Tarsus)—refutes, not Bardaisan, but Fate and astrological determinism, as did Bardaisan.11 Diodore rests exactly on Bardaisan’s arguments against fatalistic determinism and even displays revealing details, such as that of the “Lazians,” which make it virtually certain that he depended, directly or indirectly, on Bardaisan’s argument. Diodore states that the elements (στοιχεῖα) are creatures (PG 103, col. 833), as does Bardaisan in BLC col. 551 (ed. 1907): God is “their creator” and they are subjected to God. Diodore refuted the same “climatic” theory of Fate that was rejected by Bardaisan. Bardaisan inspired Diodore’s argument that the heavenly bodies cannot influence the course of nature (PG 103, col. 840). In Book 6, chapter 44, Diodore adopts Bardaisan’s argument to prove that  I argue this point in Ramelli (2016, pp. 11–13 and 87–92).  See also Ramelli (2009a). 10  I use “Fate” when referring to the Stoics and fatalistic and deterministic thinkers (astrologers, Valentinians, etc.) and “fate” when it is used by Bardaisan, who had a Christianized notion of fate, not as a full, independent force, but submitted to God. 11  See my arguments for Diodore’s indebtedness to Bardaisan in Ramelli (2009b, pp. 142–160). 8 9

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human nous, not stars, determine the customs and laws of the nations. That Diodore’s argument was identical to that of Bardaisan is clear even from Photius’ version (PG 103, col. 861); and Diodore proves even closer to Bardaisan in chapter 45, in which Diodore responds to the same astrological objection concerning the climatic zones, each governed by a star, to which Bardaisan had replied. Diodore responds to this objection in exactly the same terms as Bardaisan: he produces the same examples of the Jews and the Christians, who keep their laws in different regions of the earth. The most disparate peoples in every zone have converted to Christianity and submitted to the law of Christ. The words which introduce Diodore’s treatment of the Christians—“our race [γένος], I mean that of the Christians”—are an echo of the phrase with which Bardaisan introduced his own example of the Christians: “the new race of us Christians.” It even seems that Diodore is citing from the Syriac text, not from Eusebius’ Greek translation, which has αἵρεσις, not γένος. Bardaisan’s adjective “new” in reference to “race” also corresponds to Diodore’s remark (adapted to his own time) that Christianity is only four hundred years old and yet has conquered the whole world. Bardaisan, like Diodore later, observed that Christianity had already spread “in every land and in all regions.” The details of the “Lazians” and of the Christian γένος make me think that Diodore did not simply use Eusebius’ excerpts, but a full text of good quality, either Syriac, as I deem probable, or Greek. The second argument adduced by Diodore is that of the peoples who, conquered by the Romans, modify their laws and customs and assume those of the Romans. This argument is inspired by that of Bardaisan on peoples changing their laws upon the decision of their governors; what is more, it even echoes the example adduced by Bardaisan and mentioned above—that of Abgar the Great, who, following his conversion to Christianity, forbade a pagan ritual mutilation. Diodore wanted Bardaisan to be more radical in anti-fatalistic refutations and eliminate Fate altogether. Indeed, Bardaisan is criticized for this single point, in one chapter, not in the whole eight books. As Photius himself notes, Diodore’s criticism is only partial (ἡμι-). I am doubtful of Jurasz’s assertion that Bardaisan “is not far from identifying fate with nature” (Sect. 9.7). This is what Diodore thought (I find this in cols. 853, 856ff., 876, etc.)—but according to Bardaisan, it is not the body that is subjected to fate, while the soul is free; rather, it is the vital, inferior soul, which vivifies the body, that is subject to fate, whereas what is free from fate is nous, while many bodily facts are governed by Nature. I suspect that Bardaisan kept fate along with Nature and free will—although enfeebled and depending on Providence, as befits a Christian philosopher—in order to maintain the notion of the stars as mediators of the divine economy, as Origen also did, and to keep the parallel between the three forces (Nature, fate, and free will) and the three anthropological levels of the human being: body, animal soul, and nous, a tripartition I point out and examine in forthcoming-a. Jurasz’ concluding sentence leaves its readers with an intriguing question: “Did Bardaisan and his disciples themselves contribute to this process [i.e. the “astrologization” of Aristotle’s biology] by stimulating the association between Aristotelian ideas and the teachings of Chaldean astrologers?” (Sect. 9.7). In my view, if

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Bardaisan was a Platonizing thinker—or influenced by “Middle Platonism” or Pre-­ Plotinian imperial Platonism, as Porphyry and the Platonizing dialogue BLC indicate among many other elements—then his later association with Aristotelian thought is in line with the harmonization of Plato and Aristotle in imperial and late antique Platonism.12 But Bardaisan himself was open not only to pre-Plotinian Platonism, Stoicism, aspects of atomism and “Gnostic” ideas, but also to the Aristotelianism of his contemporary Alexander. This constitutes one more element of similarity with Origen, a major Christian Platonist who was exposed to the same influences, including Alexander, as I have argued in detail (2014), and whose ideas offer many important parallels with Bardaisan, from the Logos creator on the basis of the paradigms-figures on its surface and the defense of free will against fatalistic and astrological determinism, to the doctrine of apokatastasis, of which Origen and Bardaisan are among the first clear supporters.13 I have already pointed out some of these elements (Ramelli 2009a, 2020c), and further research is needed. It is to be noted that Bardaisan’s and Origen’s theology of freedom had a long history and an important impact. Origen influenced Gregory Nyssen’s theology of freedom.14 Through Basil, Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene, Bardaisan’s and Origen’s theology of freedom—against fatalistic, astrological determinism— reached the Christian Arabic thinker Theodore Abu Qurra, who also wrote in defense of free will against fatalism (Tarras 2019). The ways in which Bardaisan’s and Origen’s arguments reached Theodore are currently being scrutinized in scholarship.

References Primary Source Bardaisan. (1907). Liber legum regionum (F. Nau, Ed. & Trans.). In R. Graffin (Ed.), Patrologia syriaca (Vol. 2, cols. 536–611). Firmin-Didot.

Secondary Sources Burns, D. (2017). Astrological determinism, free will, and desire. In U. Tervahauta, I. Miroshnikov, O.  Lehtipuu, & I.  Dunderberg (Eds.), Women and knowledge in early Christianity (pp. 206–220). Brill. Crone, P. (2012). Daysanis. In Encyclopedia of Islam (3rd ed., pp. 116–118). Brill. Drijvers, H. J. W. (2014). Bardaisan of Edessa. Gorgias. Hezser, K. (2018). Self-control in a world controlled by others: Palestinian rabbinic “asceticism” in late antiquity. Religion in the Roman Empire, 4(2), 9–27.  See Karamanolis (2006).  On this doctrine, see Ramelli (2013b). 14  See Ramelli (2016, pp. 172–185). 12 13

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Johnson, A. (2013). Religion and identity in Porphyry of Tyre. Cambridge University Press. Jurasz, I. (2017). Bardesane, Éphrem et Albinus sur les incorporels: Une confrontation entre le platonisme et le stoïcisme dans le milieu syriaque. Philosophie Antique, 17, 169–204. Jurasz, I. (2021). Destiny, nature and freedom according to Bardaisan and Alexander of Aphrodisias: An unknown aspect of the controversy against determinism. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Karamanolis, G. (2006). Plato and Aristotle in agreement. Oxford University Press. Ramelli, I. (2009a). Origen, Bardaisan, and the origin of universal salvation. The Harvard Theological Review, 102, 135–168. Ramelli, I. (2009b). Bardaisan of Edessa: A reassessment of the evidence and a new interpretation. Gorgias. https://doi.org/10.31826/9781463216658 Ramelli, I. (2012). L’auctoritas che fonda ogni filosofia e teologia: Bardesane e l’Apologia siriaca ad Antonino Cesare attribuita a Melitone. In M. Cerutti (Ed.), Auctoritas (pp. 151–176). Cantagalli. Ramelli, I. (2013a). Origen in Augustine: A paradoxical reception. Numen, 60, 280–307. Ramelli, I. (2013b). The Christian doctrine of apokatastasis. A critical assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Vigiliae Christianae Supplements, 120). Brill. Ramelli, I. (2014). Alexander of Aphrodisias: A source of Origen’s philosophy? Philosophie Antique, 14, 237–290. Ramelli, I. (2016). Social justice and the legitimacy of slavery. The role of philosophical asceticism from ancient Judaism to late antiquity: Oxford University Press. Ramelli, I. (2018a). Bardaisan of Edessa, Origen, and Imperial philosophy: A Middle Platonic context? Aram, 30(1–2), 337–353. Ramelli, I. (2018b). Philo as one of the main inspirers of early Christian hermeneutics and apophatic theology. Adamantius, 24, 276–292. Ramelli, I. (2020a). The body of Christ as imperishable wood: Hippolytus and Bardaisan of Edessa’s complex Christology. In E. Vergani (Ed.), 12th Symposium Syriacum 2016 (pp. 1–33). Pontificio Istituto Orientale. Ramelli, I. (2020b). Origen’s critical reception of Aristotle: Some key points and aftermath in Christian Platonism. In M.  Knežević (Ed.), Aristotle in Byzantium (pp.  43–86). Center for Hellenic Studies. Ramelli, I. (2020c). The logos/nous one-many between “pagan” and Christian Platonism: Bardaisan, Clement, Origen, Plotinus, and Gregory of Nyssa. In N.  Baker-Brian & J.  Lössl (Eds.), Studia Patristica CII: Including papers presented at the seventh British Patristics conference, Cardiff, 5–7 September 2018 (pp. 175–204). Peeters. Ramelli, I. (forthcoming-a). The soul in Bardaisan, Origen, and Evagrius: Between unfolding and subsumption. In S. Rappe (Ed.), Soul matters. FS John Finamore. Society of Biblical Literature. Ramelli, I. (forthcoming-b). Matter in the dialogue of Adamantius: Origen’s heritage and hylomorphism. In J. Zachhuber (Ed.), Late antique cosmologies. Brill. Robertson, P. (2017). Greco-Roman ethical-philosophical influences in Bardaisan’s Book of the laws of countries. Vigiliae Christianae, 71, 511–540. Tarras, P. (2019). Zwischen gefesselter und freier Natur: Willensfreiheit in syrischen und christlich-­arabischen Quellen. In D. Kiesel & C. Ferrari (Eds.), Willensfreiheit (pp. 105–145). Klostermann.

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Prof. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (FRHistS) holds two MAs, a PhD, a doctorate h.c., a postdoctorate, and various habilitations to ordinarius. She has been professor of Roman history, senior visiting professor of Greek thought at Harvard and Boston University, of Church history at Columbia, and of religion at Erfurt MWK, full professor of theology and endowed chair at the Angelicum, and senior fellow at Durham University (twice), at Princeton (2017–), at Sacred Heart University, and at both Corpus Christi and Christ Church in Oxford. She is also a senior member of the Platonism centre at Cambridge University, a Humboldt Forschungspreis fellow at Erfurt MWK, senior fellow at Bonn University (elect), and professor of theology (Durham University, Hon.) and of Patristics and Church history (KUL). Recent books include Social justice and the legitimacy of slavery (OUP 2016), Evagrius, the Cappadocians, and Neoplatonism (Peeters 2017), A larger hope? (Cascade 2019), Eriugena’s Christian Neoplatonism and its sources in Patristic philosophy and ancient philosophy (Peeters 2021), Lovers of the soul, lovers of the body (co-­edited, Harvard 2021), and Patterns of women’s leadership in ancient Christianity (co-edited, OUP 2021).  

Part VI

Plotinus and Porphyry on Women

Chapter 12

Plotinus and Porphyry on Women’s Legitimacy in Philosophy Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy

Abstract  Women played an active role in Neoplatonic circles. Through a complete prosopography of women mentioned in Porphyry as well as a study of the Neoplatonic psychology in relation to gender, this paper explores how Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s philosophical views could support women’s inclusion in their circles. In particular, the importance of civic and purifying virtues in Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s teachings give women the opportunity to exercise important virtues and to live as philosophers while staying in their traditional roles of wife and mother. A short comparison with the Church Fathers allows for a deeper understanding of the originality of early Neoplatonists: although early Christians, like the Neoplatonists, possessed the conceptual tools needed to justify equality between men and women, the inclusive attitude towards women did not prevail in Christian communities. Neoplatonists were committed to their philosophical views and stuck to the logical implications of their genderless conception of soul. Keywords  Plotinus · Porphyry · Soul · Gender · Sex · Body · Scale of virtues · Early Christians

12.1  Introduction A thorough study of Porphyry’s writings concerning women shows not only that they take an active role within Neoplatonic circles, but also that they are amongst Plotinus’ closest friends (Porph., Plot. 9, 1; Goulet-Cazé 1982, p. 237). This inclusive attitude towards women seems to originate in the way Plotinus and Porphyry conceived the soul and its relation to the body, where a person’s sex is incorporated. In fact, the soul is related to the Intellect and is only temporarily linked to the body, a material entity from which the soul can be freed by exercising its own faculties M. Cambron-Goulet (*) · F.-J. Côté-Remy Département d’éducation et pédagogie, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_12

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(Plotinus, Enn. IV 8 [6]; Porph., Ad Marc. 34; Karamanolis 2007, p. 95; Sorabji 2007, p. 62). For Plotinus, the purpose of philosophy is precisely to be constantly oriented towards the intellectual nature of the soul, thus accomplishing detachment from bodily needs through purification (Porph., Plot. 2, 35; 8, 21–22; Abst. 1, 27; 1, 38; 2, 34; Sent. 32, 15–51; Michalewski 2017, p. 539). This means that the philosopher whose soul is firmly devoted to the Intellect is detached from his or her body, and therefore from the body’s sex. Furthermore, it means that sex has no real incidence on someone’s capacity to obtain a legitimate philosophical status within Plotinus’ school. The Neoplatonic view on souls is rooted in Plato’s Republic, where women’s and men’s natures are said to be identical (451c–457b).1 In order to explore that hypothesis, this article will pursue a twofold programme. Firstly, it will examine the roles of women within Plotinus’ school through a careful study of the prosopography and the vocabulary employed by Neoplatonists when women are mentioned. Secondly, after analyzing the Neoplatonic conception of the soul, it will focus on the scale of virtues that Plotinus’ companions—including women—are invited to ascend in order to become a true philosopher.

12.2  Prosopography A full prosopography of women mentioned in Porphyry is required to assess the place of women in his work. Most of them appear in the Vita Plotini, but women are also mentioned in other works either as theorist or dedicatee. As they are few, it is worth listing them all here to give a full portrait of the place that women occupy in early Neoplatonist circles. A complete prosopography also allows for an overview of the qualities that Porphyry associates to these women.

12.2.1  Women in the Vita Plotini: “Devoted to Philosophy” The first three women of our prosopography are described by Porphyry as women who are strongly committed to philosophy: 1) Amphicleia, the wife of Ariston, son of Iamblichus, 2) Gemina, with whom Plotinus lives, and 3) Gemina, the daughter of Gemina, are all mentioned in the following passage: Several women were greatly attached to him, amongst them Gemina, in whose house he lived, and her daughter, called Gemina, too, after the mother, and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston, the son of Iamblichus; all three devoted themselves assiduously to philosophy (σφόδρα φιλοσοφίᾳ προσκειμένας). (Porph., Plot. 9, 1–5; trans. 1984)2 1  It must be noted that, in Plato’s opinion, it did not imply that women are equal to men in every respect (Resp. 455e; Ti. 42b–c). Women cannot be assigned equal military and political tasks, because their sex is weaker (Resp. 456b–457c). 2  Ἔσχε δὲ καὶ γυναῖκας σφόδρα φιλοσοφίᾳ προσκειμένας, Γεμίναν τε, ἧς καὶ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ κατῴκει, καὶ τὴν ταύτης θυγατέρα Γεμίναν, ὁμοίως τῇ μητρὶ καλουμένην, Ἀμφίκλειάν τε τὴν Ἀρίστωνος τοῦ Ἰαμβλίχου υἱοῦ γεγονυῖαν γυναῖκα, [σφόδρα φιλοσοφίᾳ προσκειμένας].

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The adverb σφόδρα, when used in connection with φιλοσοφία, stresses someone’s passion for philosophy.3 It serves as a laudatory remark for these three women. Additionally, Porphyry mentions the friendship between Plotinus and 4) Salonina, the wife of the emperor Gallienus: The Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina greatly honoured and venerated Plotinus. (Porph., Plot. 12, 1–2; trans. 1984)4

Finally, even though the anecdote does not give us any details on her philosophical inclinations, Porphyry also reveals the existence of 5) Chione, a widow who lived with her children and Plotinus, and from whom a necklace had been stolen: He had a remarkable penetration into character. Once a valuable necklace was stolen from Chione, who was living in honourable widowhood with her children in the same house as Plotinus: the servants were called before him: he scrutinized them all, then indicated one: “This man is the thief.” (Porph., Plot. 11, 1–6; trans. 1984)5

Naturally, Chione’s cohabitation with Plotinus is no proof that she was a philosopher, although Porphyry describes her way of life in a positive manner, as a “honourable widowhood.” This short list of five names can appear insufficient, but we should not forget that the people who socialize with Plotinus are not specifically named in the Vita Plotini, and that amongst these people Porphyry mentions “a great number of men and women,” as well as young orphan boys and girls (παρθένοι) that Plotinus took under his wing because he deemed them worthy of becoming philosophers: Not a few men and women of position, on the approach of death, had left their boys and girls, with all their property, in his care, feeling that with Plotinus for guardian the children would be in holy hands. His house therefore was filled with lads and lasses, amongst them Potamon, in whose education he took such interest as to often hear the boy recite verses of his own composition. He always found time for those who came to submit returns of the children’s property, and he looked closely to the accuracy of the accounts: “Until the young people take to philosophy,” he used to say, “their fortunes and revenues must be kept intact for them.” (Porph., Plot. 9, 5–16; trans. 1984)6

3  It is, for example, how Dionysus of Syracuse’s passion for philosophy is described in [Plato], Letter VII 328a. 4  Ἐτίμησαν δὲ τὸν Πλωτῖνον μάλιστα καὶ ἐσέφθησαν Γαλιῆνός τε ὁ αὐτοκράτωρ καὶ ἡ τούτου γυνὴ Σαλωνίνα. 5  Περιῆν δὲ αὐτῷ τοσαύτη περιουσία ἠθῶν κατανοήσεως, ὡς κλοπῆς ποτε γεγονυίας πολυτελοῦς περιδεραίου Χιόνης, ἥτις αὐτῷ συνῴκει μετὰ τῶν τέκνων σεμνῶς τὴν χηρείαν διεξάγουσα, καὶ ὑπ’ ὄψιν τοῦ Πλωτίνου τῶν οἰκετῶν συνηγμένων ἐμβλέψας ἅπασιν· οὗτος, ἔφη, ἐστὶν ὁ κεκλοφώς, δείξας ἕνα τινά. 6  Πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες καὶ γυναῖκες ἀποθνῄσκειν μέλλοντες τῶν εὐγενεστάτων φέροντες τὰ ἑαυτῶν τέκνα, ἄρρενάς τε ὁμοῦ καὶ θηλείας, ἐκείνῳ παρεδίδοσαν μετὰ τῆς ἄλλης οὐσίας ὡς ἱερῷ τινι καὶ θείῳ φύλακι. Διὸ καὶ ἐπεπλήρωτο αὐτῷ ἡ οἰκία παίδων καὶ παρθένων. Ἐν τούτοις δὲ ἦν καὶ Ποτάμων, οὗ τῆς παιδεύσεως φροντίζων πολλάκις ἓν καὶ μεταποιοῦντος ἠκροάσατο. Ἠνείχετο δὲ καὶ τοὺς λογισμούς, ἀναφερόντων τῶν [ἐν] ἐκείνοις παραμενόντων, καὶ τῆς ἀκριβείας ἐπεμελεῖτο λέγων, ἕως ἂν μὴ φιλοσοφῶσιν, ἔχειν αὐτοὺς δεῖν τὰς κτήσεις καὶ τὰς προσόδους ἀνεπάφους τε καὶ σῳζομένας.

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The presence of these women within Neoplatonic circles calls for some general remarks regarding women’s education at the time. First of all, the example of Amphicleia, the wife of Ariston, son of Iamblichus, highlights the important role played by family relationships in women’s access to education (Deslauriers 2012, p.  345).7 Women could receive an education most notably because of the demographic circumstances of Rome’s urban context in the second century CE: upon the death of their husbands, who were often much older than they were, women had to make sure that their children could take on the family business when they came of age (Cribiore 2001, pp. 74–75; Helleman 1995). Sometimes, women would even gain control of the family business for themselves (Watts 2017, pp. 21–23). Their education was generally closely linked to their husband’s or father’s activities. This explains the homogamy observed among the members of philosophical schools, a phenomenon that is not exclusive to the field of philosophy (Waithe 1987, p. 11). Second, a woman’s education was not as financially lucrative as a man’s: if men’s education in law and rhetoric allowed them to steadily advance to higher posts in the imperial administration, women, on the other hand, mostly gained cultural advantages related to a better understanding of the elite’s behavior. This is why our sources indicate that women’s education is more philosophical than juridical or rhetorical (Watts 2017, pp. 24–26). Third, the relations made through association with a school of philosophy can be used to improve social status (Van Hoof & Van Nuffelen 2015; Williams 2014). In addition, the examples of the two Geminas, the mother and the daughter described as devoted assiduously to philosophy, as well as the case of Chione, whose philosophical merit is not specified, are significant due to their cohabitation with Plotinus. The expressions ἧς καὶ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ κατῴκει and ἣτις αὐτῷ συνῴκει used to describe them remind us that living with the master is one of the signs of belonging to a school, and more precisely to the small circle of the master’s closest students. Indeed, it is not unusual for students to live with the master—it is true in the case of philosophers, but also for schools of rhetoric and medicine (Watts 2011, p. 231). In that respect, Eunapius (VS X 5–9) explains that students would often stay with the teacher, unless there were too many of them. They would then be housed with neighbours and close relatives, a practice of communal life that can also be observed in the case of Marinus.8 Thus, even if the case of Chione is debatable, it is highly probable that the two Geminas were philosophers as well as members of the school’s elite, even though Porphyry does not mention them anywhere else. After all, as Addey (2017a, p. 423) notes, the school of Plotinus is located in their house.

7  Hawley (1994, p. 84) indicates that women do not study philosophy on their own; they are always accompanied by men. 8  See the Life of Proclus, or On Happiness, where it is said that Proclus lives with the sophist Leonas (VIII 5) and philosophers such as Plutarch (XII 15–18) and Syrianus (XII 32–36). See also Cambron-Goulet (2017).

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12.2.2  Quotes from Ptolemais In his Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics, Porphyry quotes Ptolemais, a female author who wrote a treatise on Pythagorean musical theory (Addey 2017a, p. 423), even though she is not necessarily a Pythagorean (Plant 2007, p. 87). The passages quoted by Porphyry suggest that Ptolemais understood the mathematical principles subjacent to the Pythagorean musical theory, as well as the principles of related sciences like astronomy. The manner in which she is quoted also shows that her being a woman has no impact on Porphyry’s perception of her (Pomeroy 2013, pp. 95–96; Addey 2017a, p. 423).

12.2.3  Marcella, Recipient of a Letter Marcella, Porphyry’s wife, is a woman whose association with the Neoplatonic school cannot be questioned. Some scholars believe that Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella is intended for a novice in philosophy,9 or that it could even be some sort of protreptic.10 Others suggest that the themes discussed in the letter show that its recipient is highly familiar with the Neoplatonic doctrines and the works of Plato (Addey 2017a, p. 424). In any case, we can safely assume that Marcella existed, that she was the authentic recipient of the letter, and that she received some degree of philosophical instruction (Cambron-Goulet 2019). For all these reasons, she deserves to be a part of our prosopography. As we can see, the number of women mentioned by Porphyry in his works is significant. Even if it is not the purpose of our present inquiry, and given the scarcity of testimonies concerning women’s presence in various circles during Greco-Roman antiquity, it is important to highlight the fact that there seem to be more women in the Neoplatonic schools than anywhere else: Arete,11 Hypatia, Sosipatra, or Asclepigenia, for example, were all later associated with a Neoplatonic school. The Neoplatonic understanding and reception of Plato’s conception of the soul could explain the presence of women whose aptitude for philosophy does not seem to be called into doubt in Porphyry’s works.

 Guillaumont (2017) concludes that Marcella is the authentic recipient of the letter.  Whittaker (2010) considers that the letter was written to be published and that its aim was to turn women away from Christianism by trying to convert them to philosophy. 11  Arete is the recipient of a letter from Iamblichus. See Addey (2017a, p. 425). 9

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12.3  The Conception of the Soul The concept of soul that we find in Plotinus and Porphyry originates in Plato’s views on a universal human nature, which indicates that the soul might be regarded as genderless.12 Even if the debates concerning the concept of soul in Plato are beyond the scope of this paper, a few words on Plato’s universal soul are required to understand its interpretation in early Neoplatonism.

12.3.1  Plato In a highly problematic passage of the Phaedrus,13 Plato speaks of a universal human nature through the idea that every soul once contemplated the Forms: As I have said, nature requires that the soul of every human being has seen reality; otherwise, no soul could have entered this sort of living thing. (249e–250a; trans. 1997)14

As Brisson (1997) puts it, this “human” soul is not exclusive to what we call humans, because in the “process of metensomatosis, it is a human soul similar to the souls of gods and demons that moves the body of a man, a woman and all the animals” (p. 227). Incidentally, it is in this conception of metensomatosis that we detect the origin of the Republic’s well known argument regarding the equality between men and women: according to this argument, women can and should hold the same positions as their male peers, although they are physically weaker (455e).15 Furthermore, as Addey points out (2017a, p.  412), there are numerous passages within the Platonic corpus where the soul is said to be devoid of gender due to its immaterial and eternal nature. Therefore, aptitudes, including those of the

 The key word here is “might.” The thesis that human souls are genderless is quite problematic: although the sex is attached to the body, individual souls differ from one another and as such receive the body they deserve, therefore suggesting that souls incarnated in a female body are weaker souls. See Schultz (2019). 13  As Hoffman & Rashed (2008) recall, 249b, which immediately precedes the passage quoted below (249e–250a), has most certainly been corrupted. Fortunately, the problems relevant to 249b, for which Hoffman and Rashed have proposed a solution, do not seem to affect our understanding of 249e–250a. 14  καθάπερ γὰρ εἴρηται, πᾶσα μὲν ἀνθρώπου ψυχὴ φύσει τεθέαται τὰ ὄντα, ἢ οὐκ ἂν ἦλθεν εἰς τόδε τὸ ζῷον· 15  It is also Xenophon’s opinion (Symp. 2, 9). This weakness of the female body, according to Olympiodorus, depends on individuals: κατ’ οὐδὲν γὰρ διαφέρει γυνὴ ἀνδρός, εἰ μὴ κατὰ τὰ παιδουργὰ μόρια· ὥστε πολλάκις καὶ κρεῖττον ἂν πολιτεύσοιτο γυνὴ ἀνδρός, καὶ οὕτως κρεῖττον ὥστε καὶ ἀνδρίσασθαι καὶ ἀποθανεῖν. “Man and woman do not differ at all except in the parts [of the body] related to child-bearing. So, a woman might often actually be better constituted than a man, so much better as to show manly courage and die [for her country]” (Olympiodorus, Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias 18.9, 470d5–6; trans. 1997). Olympiodorus’ statement also suggests that male and female souls do not differ, only their bodies do. 12

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p­ hilosopher, are distributed equally among men and women (Resp. V 454d–e; Meno 71d–73c; Ti. 18c). Plato, however, does not systematically defend equality for men and women, as we can see in light of the inferior position that women hold in the hierarchy of souls in Timaeus 42b–c, or the age that they need to attain before they can fulfill political duties (Leg. 785b; Hawley 1994, p. 73).

12.3.2  Early Neoplatonism The idea of a universal human nature suggested in a common reading of the Phaedrus passage is shared by early Neoplatonists, who seem to abide by its general principle while suppressing the hierarchy of the Timaeus.16 Neither Plotinus nor Porphyry discusses the idea that a man who failed to live righteously would, through metensomatosis, reincarnate as a woman (Ti. 42b–c). Rather, they put forward in their work a radically egalitarian view on souls. 12.3.2.1  Plotinus Plotinus believes that all souls share the same nature. For every soul has something of what is below, in the direction of the body, and of what is above, in the direction of the Intellect. (Plotinus, Enn. IV 8 [6], 8, 12–13; trans. 1988)17

The shared nature amongst humans is due to the fact that every soul originates from the same principle (the Intellect, which originates from the One), whether this soul is human, animal, vegetal, astral, or related to the elements (fire, air, earth, water). In fact, since they all come from the higher realities, souls have the common desire to produce, in the sensible realm, an order inspired by the contemplation of the Forms before metensomatosis occurred. This aspect of the Neoplatonic philosophy is important, because it shows that the inclination towards order, which is

 In that respect, early Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Porphyry seem to differ from later Neoplatonists such as Proclus. Although addressing that issue goes well beyond the scope of this article, a few words on Proclus should illustrate this specificity: Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus defends a hierarchy of souls in which female souls are inferior to male souls (e.g. In Ti. I 46, 24–47, 1; II 262, 21–26; see Schultz 2018 and Baltzly 2013). He also argues that souls have male and female traits before they are linked with a body (In Ti. III 292, 28–293, 5). This gendered conception of the soul, which cannot be found in Plotinus’ or Porphyry’s works, contradicts the idea of a common nature for men and women, but without calling into question the possibility, for women, to be righteous and wise. For Proclus, men and women can be philosophers (their respective natures allow it), but women can never hope to equal men, because the female aspect of their soul prohibits it (In R. I 248, 4–16). It is, as we understand it, Proclus’ interpretation of Plato’s argument concerning the weakness of the female gender: if women’s status is inferior to men’s, it is because their souls are, at the outset, weaker (Baltzly 2013, pp. 403–424). 17  Πᾶσα γὰρ ψυχὴ ἔχει τι καὶ τοῦ κάτω πρὸς σῶμα καὶ τοῦ ἄνω πρὸς νοῦν. 16

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developed through philosophy, is not exclusive to men. On the contrary, it is an inclination present in all souls, including women’s. 12.3.2.2  Porphyry This conception of the soul finds its best example in Porphyry’s letter to his wife Marcella, where Porphyry seems to accept the idea that a woman can be a philosopher. In accordance with his master Plotinus, Porphyry (De Abst. III 21) says that the Intellect exists in every being, thus guaranteeing his wife meets the minimal requirements to develop her “natural aptitude for philosophy.” The second reason [why I married you] was more divinely inspired and not at all like this common one: in my admiration of your natural aptitude for the right philosophy, I did not think it fitting, after you were bereft of your husband, who was a friend of mine, to leave you abandoned without a partner and protector, wise and suited to your character. (Ad Marc. 3; trans. 1987)18

Furthermore, Porphyry adds in his letter that sex is related to the body, and not to the soul. Therefore, do not be overly concerned about whether your body is male or female; do not regard yourself as a woman, Marcella, for I did not devote myself to you as such. Flee from every effeminate element of the soul as if you are clothed in a male body. (Ad Marc. 33; trans. 1987)19

From these passages, one can consider Porphyry to observe Plato’s genderless conception of the soul. Both Plotinus and Porphyry seem to focus on what Plato says in the Phaedrus and the Republic, while ignoring the hierarchy of the souls present in the Timaeus: from this perspective, women’s souls are absolutely similar to the souls of men. This strong interpretation of Plato’s conception of the soul impacts the manner in which women are perceived, and more specifically their capacity to be righteous. It makes them just as capable as men of becoming pious and just (Plotinus, Enn. I 2 [19], 1, 4–5). Presumably, this view on souls explains why Neoplatonists include women within their circles and are willing to regard them as philosophers. Porphyry’s account of sex as attached to the body also supports his claim that women can practice philosophy in spite of their femaleness, by adopting a male gender.20 This last bit of the argument should however be emphasized, as it allows

 ἑτέρας δὲ θειοτέρας καὶ οὐδὲν τῇ δημώδει ταύτῃ ἐοικυίας, καθ’ ἣν ἀγασθείς σου τὴν πρὸς τὴν ὀρθὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἐπιτηδειότητα τῆς φύσεως, οὐκ ᾠήθην προσήκειν ἀνδρὸς φίλου μοι στερηθεῖσαν συλλήπτορος ἔρημόν σε καταλιπεῖν καὶ προστάτου σώφρονος καὶ τῷ σῷ τρόπῳ ἐπιτηδείου. 19  μήτε οὖν εἰ ἄρρην εἶ μήτε εἰ θήλεια τὸ σῶμα πολυπραγμόνει, μηδὲ γυναῖκα ἴδῃς σαυτήν, ὅτι μηδ’ ἐγώ σοι ὡς τοιαύτῃ προσέσχον. Φεῦγε τῆς ψυχῆς πᾶν τὸ θηλυνόμενον, ὡς εἰ καὶ ἄρρενος εἶχες τὸ σῶμα περικείμενον. 20  A parallel could be drawn with Axiothea, who dressed as a man to attend Plato’s classes (Diog. Laert. III 46). Other cases of women who cross-dress as men are found in Plutarch (Pomp. XXXII 14–15 and Hyg. 274, 10–13). See Blundell (1995, p. 145). 18

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for sexism: women are only considered insofar as they do not identify with their femaleness anymore, but have rather become male (ἄρρην).21 Since the vocabulary used by Porphyry to describe the virtuous soul is far from being gender-neutral, his inclusion of women as potential philosophers is compatible with a disparaging attitude towards femininity.

12.4  The Neoplatonic Conception of a True Philosopher The conception of the soul and its relation to the body plays a central role in the definition of a true philosopher within the Neoplatonic school. Philosophy, for Neoplatonists, is the highest art of living.22 It is a practice that can be mastered with knowledge of the Forms and detachment from the body (Porph., Ad Marc. 32; Michalewski 2017, pp.  537–538), through education (Watts 2017, p.  42; Michalewski 2017, p.  538), or through asceticism (Goulet-Cazé 1982, p.  255; O’Brien Wicker in Porphyry 1987, p. 7): “So then, a great education means to be in control of the body.” Often people amputate some limb to save their lives; you should be prepared to amputate the whole body to save your soul. (Ad Marc. 34; trans. 1987, modified)23

In order to contemplate the Forms, one must gain strict control over one’s body. This can be achieved through a progression on the scale of virtues, which becomes the focus of Plotinus’ teachings (Michalewski 2017, p. 542). Therefore, true philosophers are not only teachers of philosophy, they also incarnate a moral ideal.24 As we will see, one becomes a true philosopher as one ascends the scale of virtues.

21  The encouragement to Marcella to act as if she had a male body (ὡς εἰ καὶ ἄρρενος εἶχες τὸ σῶμα περικείμενον) shows this sexism, as does e.g. the use of the word θηλυνομένου to describe the soul that is soiled by passion (Porph., De Abst. IV 20, 3) and the use of the word ἀνδρίσασθαι in Olympiodorus’ Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias (18, 9, 470d5–6). 22  About philosophy as a way of life in Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s thoughts, see Hadot (1995, pp. 243–259). 23  μεγάλη οὖν παιδεία ἄρχειν τοῦ σώματος. Πολλάκις κόπτουσί τινα μέρη ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ· τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς ἕνεκα ἕτοιμος ἔσο τὸ ὅλον σῶμα ἀποκόπτειν. 24  In fact, the term “philosopher,” in its usual sense, did not exclusively refer to people who taught philosophy: according to epigraphic sources, where philosophy is said to be an ideal more than a profession (Goulet 2017, p. 603), “philosopher” can also be an honorific title given to someone who displayed certain civic and domestic virtues (Haake 2017, p. 393). Addey (2017a, p. 415) uses a narrower definition of the philosophos. For her, it is a person moved by his or her love of wisdom and who desires to study things both human and divine. Such a definition allows for a distinction between the philosophical and professional activities of a member of a school.

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12.4.1  Scale of Virtues The Neoplatonic scale of virtues is a programme for progress towards divinization (Addey 2014, p. 272; O’Meara 2006, p. 75). In Plotinus (Enn. I 2 [19]), it is divided into three levels: civic virtues, purifying virtues, and intellectual virtues. While civic virtues are related to daily deeds, the care for others and the political life of the city, purifying virtues enable the soul to detach from the body by renouncing earthly goods. These two first levels also appear in Porphyry’s account (Sent. 32). However, Porphyry’s scale differs slightly from Plotinus’ in that it has four levels of virtues. Whereas Plotinus speaks of “intellectual virtues,” Porphyry speaks of “contemplative and paradigmatic virtues.”25 We will use the generic “highest virtues” to refer to these virtues that are located above the two first levels in Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s scales and that are concerned with intellectual activity and contemplation. It is important to note that the levels of virtue must not be seen as a linear path where the first echelons become obsolete for those who have reached the highest virtues: as Hadot (1995, p. 246) puts it, “the contemplative life does not abolish care for others,” nor does it stop anyone from indulging in daily business.26 Moreover, it is the knowledge of the Intellect that enables the proper practice of civic and purifying virtues. In other words, the practice of contemplative virtues is the condition of possibility for the practice of civic and purifying virtues (Wilberding 2008, pp. 389–390). The fact that women were part of Neoplatonic circles as philosophers suggests that they were perceived as capable of making their way up the scale of virtues. Indeed, being righteous is said to be advisable both for men and women. As Porphyry himself says in his letter to his wife Marcella (Ad Marc. 7), men and women (ἀνδρί τε ὁμοίως καὶ γυναικί) should better toil (πονεῖν) than let their soul become enervated by pleasure, as toil is necessary to attain virtue (πονεῖν ἀνάγκη τὸν τυχεῖν ἀρητῆς σπουδάζοντα). We will examine in what follows how exactly, according to Plotinus and Porphyry, women were expected to display virtues at the different levels of this scale. 12.4.1.1  Civic Virtues In Plotinus’ thought, the ascension of the soul towards the Intellect entails the practice of civic virtues (Plotinus, Enn. I 2 [19], 7, 20–28; O’Meara 1994, pp. 156–157), which are means for a higher end, i.e. accessing the divine (Michalewski 2017,  The doctrine of the scale of virtues has varied through time with virtues added below or above the original three levels. Iamblichus probably added to Porphyry’s four stages the natural virtues (which are at a lower level on the scale) and the theurgic virtues above the paradigmatic virtues (O’Meara 2003, pp. 46–49). See Saffrey et al. (2002, pp. LXIX–XCVIII) for an extensive history of the scale of virtues. 26  Plotinus himself takes care of the orphans under his responsibility, and this charge does not disrupt his contemplative life (Porph., Plot. 9, 12–16). His teachings, as a matter of fact, comprise an ethical dimension, which is rooted in the ethos of his time (Michalewski 2017, p. 552). 25

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p. 553). These virtues pertain to the social status of an individual (Brisson 2004, p. 277; 2006, p. 51). Porphyry’s exhortations to Marcella about everyday life, the children’s education and household management fall within this category.27 Salonina, one of the women mentioned by Porphyry, also appears in a context where he speaks of Plotinus’ preoccupations about civic virtues and his desire to create an ideal city for philosophers and philosophical life (Porph., Plot. 12, 2). These examples show that women can cultivate civic virtues while embracing their traditional roles of wife and mother. The importance given by Plotinus to civic virtues is closely linked to his understanding of philosophy and philosophical activity. The practice of philosophy as defined by Plotinus is not aimed at moving away from the sensible world. The goal of the philosopher is to set the sensible world in order through an informed practice of virtues by “disseminating” the Intellect into it (Michalewski 2017, p. 561). The practice of civic virtues is the first step towards the Intellect, and its influence on the philosopher’s actions facilitates his capacity to diffuse the good in the sensible world (Michalewski 2017, pp. 558–559), as well as his access to higher virtues, the Intellect and the One. Thus, Plotinus did not despise the sensible world, but rather considered that taking care of it, a goal towards which are oriented civic virtues, was a legitimate part of philosophical activity (Enn. II 9 [33], 17, 27–30). 12.4.1.2  Purifying Virtues According to early Neoplatonists, it is only through purifying virtues, which are higher than civic virtues, that a philosophical life becomes possible, for it allows the soul to detach itself from the body and begin its ascension towards the Intellect. Naturally, civic virtues are also important for philosophers insofar as they are judged on their way of life, but their detachment from material goods such as money and honors is precisely what gives them credibility in the social sphere because it guarantees their impartiality, for example, when they take on the role of political advisor. In other words, their public engagement is facilitated by their disdain for earthly goods (Watts 2017, pp.  79–83). Therefore, women’s legitimacy in philosophy depends on their capacity to practice purifying virtues, which are simultaneously the guarantor of the righteous practice of civic virtues and the condition of possibility of the highest of virtues. As it turns out, Plotinus specifically says that “anyone among us” can be freed from the body, because the purified soul has no communion with the bodily:

 It should be noted that among Pythagorean women, these preoccupations are considered to be of low concern for philosophy (Jufresa 1995; Lambropoulou 1995; Wider 2006, p. 33; Hawley 1994, p.  75; Deslauriers 2012, pp.  346–348). However, as they express Marcella’s civic virtues, her domestic concerns do count as philosophical matters. See O’Brien Wicker (1989, p. 417).

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Let us take the soul, not the soul in body which has acquired irrational desires and passions and admitted other affection, but the soul which has wiped these away and which, as far as possible, has no communion with the body. (Plotinus, Enn. IV 7 [2], 10, 7–11; trans. 1966)28

In short, if all human souls are as Plotinus describes, it means that women can be righteous and wise through the use of purifying virtues. As we can see in Porphyry’s Letter to his wife Marcella, women in Plotinus’ inner circle are invited to practice purifying virtues (Cambron-Goulet 2019). Indeed, Porphyry’s exhortations to Marcella demonstrate that women can purify their souls as much as men. So then, you have not benefited at all from the presence of my shadow and visible form nor from its absence. The absence is painful to you as you train yourself to flee from the body. But you could encounter me in complete purity as one both present and united to you night and day in a pure and most beautiful form of union and not as one likely to be separated from you, if you would train yourself to ascend into yourself, gathering from the body all the parts of your soul which have been scattered and cut into many pieces from their former unity which had strength due to its size. (Ad Marc. 10; trans. 1987)29

This text indicates that Marcella, in Porphyry’s eyes, is able to practice purifying virtues, as he invites her to train to detach from her body in order to unite with Porphyry within the Intellect. This also suggests that Marcella could reach the level of contemplative virtues. Marcella is not accepted as a woman, but as a soul freed from her body and its femaleness. It should also be noted that the disdain for earthly goods is an attribute of later Neoplatonist women, such as Hypatia and Maximus of Ephesus’ wife. Women, even more than their male counterparts, need to free themselves from their bodies in order to ascend the scale of virtues (Watts 2017, pp. 84–85 and 101–102). These later Neoplatonist women show us that Plotinus’ doctrine on women’s capacity to practice virtues has had a most fruitful posterity in Neoplatonic circles. 12.4.1.3  Highest Virtues Insofar as only full-fledged philosophers may practice intellectual or contemplative virtues, the number of people who can possess them is quite limited. This is why, even though later Neoplatonists are not the focus of our study, we must mention that among them some women—i.e. Hypatia, Sosipatra and Asclepigenia—have distinguished themselves through the practice of the highest virtues. The case of Hypatia is particularly well known. She is recognized as a philosopher and she belongs to a

 Λάβωμεν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ τὴν ἐν σώματι ἐπιθυμίας ἀλόγους καὶ θυμοὺς προσλαβοῦσαν καὶ πάθη ἄλλα ἀναδεξαμένην, ἀλλὰ τὴν ταῦτα ἀποτριψαμένην καὶ καθόσον οἷόν τε μὴ κοινωνοῦσαν τῷ σώματι. 29  Τῆς μὲν οὖν ἐμῆς σκιᾶς καὶ τοῦ φαινομένου εἰδώλου οὔτε παρόντων ὠνήσω τι οὔτ’ ἀπόντων ἐπώδυνος ἡ ἀπουσία τῇ μελετώσῃ φεύγειν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος. Ἐμοῦ δὲ καθαρῶς τύχοις ἂν μάλιστα καὶ παρόντος καὶ συνόντος νύκτωρ καὶ μεθ’ ἡμέραν σὺν καθαρῷ τε καὶ τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς συνουσίας καὶ μηδὲ χωρισθῆναι οἵου τε ὄντος, εἰ μελετῴης εἰς σεαυτὴν ἀναβαίνειν συλλέγουσα ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος πάντα τὰ διασκεδασθέντα σου μέλη καὶ εἰς πλῆθος κατακερματισθέντα ἀπὸ τῆς τέως ἐν μεγέθει δυνάμεως ἰσχυούσης ἑνώσεως. 28

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scholarly tradition that comes from the Alexandrian mathematical rigor and the teachings of Plotinus and Porphyry (Watts 2017, p. 37).30 The strong contemplative aspect of her theology plays an important role in the good relations that she fosters with the pagan intellectual elite and the Christian majority of Alexandria. In point of fact, the teaching of a doctrine according to which access to the divine goes hand in hand with contemplation is absolutely compatible with Christianism. Furthermore, it is the practice of these contemplative virtues that allows Hypatia to take an active role in the city, which in return allows her to put her civic virtues into practice (Watts 2017, pp. 47–50 and 58–62). Sosipatra, who is known to us through Eunapius, also taught philosophy in private to advanced students.31 She did not receive an academic education equivalent to Hypatia’s, because her education, “divine” in origin (Watts 2017 p. 99), did not come from Iamblichus (Johnston 2012, pp.  108–109). And yet, Sosipatra can be considered as Iamblichus’ successor because of her professional association with Aedesius, who was among Iamblichus’ best students (Eunapius, VS V 11), and her marriage to Eusthatius, one of Aedesius’ relatives (Eunapius, VS VI 37; Addey 2017b, p. 149). Once again, family relationships help women to receive a higher education. Besides, as made clear by the lengthy passage dedicated to her in Eunapius, Sosipatra is deemed superior to her husband (Johnston 2012, p.  101). Even though the scale of virtues found in The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists is slightly different from the Plotinian scale, Eunapius tells us that Sosipatra, in addition to her natural virtues, possesses the capacity to approach the divine by means of philosophical and theurgical expertise, which implies an access to the highest virtues (Addey 2017b, p.  152). Her exact role is debated: according to Johnston (2012, pp. 111–113), she does not perform the rituals for which she was trained, which suggests a soul of the highest status; Addey, (2017b, p. 151) in turn considers Sosipatra an advanced theurgist who does practice rituals. In any case, Eunapius portrays Sosipatra as a woman who reached high stages in the scale of virtues. The comparison established between Sosipatra, Plotinus, and Socrates, which partly depends on their refusal to use magic (Porph. Plot. 10, 1–13; Johnston 2012, p. 111), brings her into a philosophical lineage (Addey 2017b, p. 153) and elevates her to the rank of a model of virtue (Johnston 2012, pp. 114–116). As for Asclepigenia, Marinus tells us that she taught ritual practices to Proclus (Addey 2017b, p.  155). Even though she was educated by her father in a rather scholarly environment (Watts 2017, p. 101), the ritual and theurgical nature of her expertise is described by Marinus in ways that allow comparison with Sosipatra. Although Eunapius’ and Marinus’ accounts of the scale of virtues do not entirely match the three-degree scale of Plotinus, their descriptions of Sosispatra’s and Asclepigenia’s proximity with the divine indicate that both women practiced virtues that leaned towards the highest levels on the scale.  It should be noted that other scholars, such as Cameron & Long (1993), believe that Hypatia’s Platonism was more influenced by Iamblichus and included a theurgical orientation (Addey 2017a, p.  430). Be that as it may, it seems that Hypatia had reached the ultimate level in the scale of virtues. 31  Eunapius’ testimony suggests that she taught to Maximus; see Addey (2017b, pp. 148 and 151). 30

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With this in mind, we must add that while many Neoplatonists embrace a conception of philosophy in which contemplation takes precedence over rituals,32 not all do. Iamblichus, for example, defends a conception where the ritual is important, in part because of the theurgical orientation of his approach.33 Nevertheless, the contemplative orientation of Plotinus’ scale of virtues may play an important role in the inclusion of women within his philosophical school: while the completion of certain theurgical rituals by women has been a subject of ongoing debate,34 contemplation has no sex or gender. Indeed, the inclusion of women in the ranks of philosophers is less problematic in the school of Plotinus than anywhere else (Addey 2017b, p. 145).

12.4.2  P  roblems Related to Sexuality and the Traditional Role of Women In antiquity, the place of women in philosophy is generally restricted by specificities linked to their gender, the desire they kindle, or the fact that their traditional roles of mother and wife imply sexuality (Hawley 1994, p. 84). In order to obtain recognition, women must often be more righteous than their male peers: chastity, among other things, is considered very important.35 This explains the abundance of testimonies concerning women’s sexuality (Addey 2017b, pp.  145–147; Hawley 1994, pp. 79–82), in addition to the fact that philosophers are judged according to their way of life (Watts 2017, pp. 74–77 and 104) and that the topoi concerning civic virtues are common in ancient biographies.36 That being said, for Plotinus, sexuality is not rigorously incompatible with the virtue of temperance: Those who love beautiful bodies, also with a view to sexual intercourse, love them because they are beautiful, and so do those who love with the mixed love of which we have spoken; they love women in order to perpetuate themselves, but if the women are not beautiful they fail in their purpose [of generating in beauty]; but the first group [those who love without

 Hypatia, for example, endorses this conception (Watts 2017, p. 50).  Plotinus and Porphyry do not promote such a conception (Michalewski 2017, p.  562; Watts 2017, p. 54). 34  Johnston (2012, p. 113) notes that the feminine ritual practice is more problematic because of the negative perception of witches in the Greco-Roman thinking (Medea, Circe, etc.). 35  The lack of sexuality in male philosophers is not as systematically highlighted: although it is mentioned by Marinus (Vit. Procl. 17, 2), Proclus’ celibacy is little commented upon. 36  About the topoi in biographies, see Addey (2017b, p.  147); about the particular case of civic virtues, see Konstan and Walsh (2016), who show that a great number of biographies tend to account for dominant civic virtues. Hawley (1994, p. 76) mentions that the argument according to which philosophy allows women to be better housekeepers can also be found in the works of Musonius and Plutarch, which means that it is not exclusive to Neoplatonists. However, Neoplatonists emphasize on the qualities common to the housekeeper and the citizen through the common expression of “civic virtues.” 32 33

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thought of self-perpetuation, with a pure love of beauty] are better; both are chaste. (Plotinus, Enn. III 5 [50], 1, 56–59; trans. 1967)37

In order to understand this passage, we must take into account Plotinus’ explanations on the cause of women’s beauty. Beauty does not stem from matter (and thus from the sensible world), but rather from the Intellect, which gives access to contemplation of beauty (Worms 2010). This conception of beauty reveals that women are not only made of matter and that love, which is a form of desire, is not generated by matter, but by the Intellect (Enn. V 8 [31], 2, 6–3, 24). Therefore, Plotinus allows for virtuous sexuality; consequently, he does not require women to live a life of chastity, nor does he disqualify them as philosophers on the grounds of their traditional roles as wife and mother.

12.5  Conclusion 12.5.1  Women’s Access to Philosophical Wisdom At this point, we can fairly say that Plotinus and Porphyry fully accepted the consequences of their interpretation of the Platonic conception of the soul, even though some of these were not easily conceded to by the patriarchal culture in which this conception took root. Since Plotinus and Porphyry believe that civic virtues can be practiced in everyday life, and that philosophy demands detachment from the body through purifying virtues which in turn enable the contemplation of the Intellect, then sex or gender cannot prevent anyone from acting according to the three forms of virtues found in the Plotinian scale. Women have access to civic virtues while embracing traditional roles such as those of wife and mother. Once they have reached the level of purifying virtues, they free themselves from their bodily femaleness and are ready to access the highest virtues as genderless souls. Plotinus and Porphyry’s genderless conception of the soul and their recognition of women’s capacity to ascend the scale of virtues provide a plausible explanation for their giving women true legitimacy in the field of philosophy.

12.5.2  Parallels with Christianity Given that Neoplatonism was, in late antiquity, the dominant school of thought in philosophy (Goulet 2017, pp. 607–608) and that it has exerted some influence on Christianism, an assessment of the parallels between this school and the Early Fathers of the Church might be worth turning to. It will allow us to gauge to what  Ἀλλ’ οὖν οἵ τε σωμάτων καλῶν καὶ διὰ μίξιν ἐρῶντες, ὅτι καλά ἐστιν ἐρῶσιν, οἵ τε τὸν λεγόμενον μικτὸν ἔρωτα, γυναικῶν μέν, ἵνα καὶ τὸ ἀεί, μὴ τοιούτων δέ, σφαλλόμενοι· οἱ δὲ ἀμείνους· σωφρονοῦσι μὲν ἄμφω. 37

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extent the Early Neoplatonists’ stance is merely a continuation of their zeitgeist or whether theirs is a position of dissent regarding the status quo of the time. At first glance, a comparison between the Plotinian and Christian philosophies on the issue of women’s inclusion may seem implausible: because of their strong commitment to Aristotelian biology, numerous Church Fathers have declared that women do not possess intellectual and moral faculties equivalent to those of men. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. IV 8) and John Chrysostom (Homily IX, On the First and Second epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy), for example, have both argued in favor of the exclusion of women from the Church’s ecclesial hierarchy. These views are mostly justified by the authority of the Old Testament (Gen 1:27; Gen 2:20–23; Gen 3:1–24) and the epistles of Paul (1 Cor 11:7–9; 1 Cor 14:33–35; Eph 5:22–23; 1 Tim 2:8–15). However, it should be noted that some of Clement of Alexandria’s arguments are surprisingly positive about the inclusion of women; we can even detect a hint of Neoplatonism avant la lettre: It is agreed that everyone who has the same nature according to their species is capable of the same virtue. Therefore, with regard to their human nature, women do not seem to have one, and men another. Indeed, since [their human nature] is the same, the same goes for virtue. Consequently, if virtue, moderation, justice, and all the other virtues that follow were considered to belong to men, would it not be appropriate for men alone to be virtuous, and for women to be unrestrained and unjust? Yet, even to say this is unseemly. Hence, woman and man, and also freeman and slave, must in the same way care for moderation, justice and every other virtue, for we have agreed that there is just one and the same virtue for the same [human] nature. (Clem. Al., Strom. IV 8, 300; our trans.)38

This text shows that both men and women can access the same virtue, just as Plotinus and Porphyry will later claim. Further in his Stromata, Clement defends the idea that women can be just as perfect as men (Strom. IV 19), but stipulates that they must act in accordance with virtues specific to their gender, thus making it clear that women’s virtues differ from men’s. He then connects female virtues to what Neoplatonists would later call civic and purifying virtues, as they express themselves not only through motherhood and devotion to family, but also through Christian faith (πληροφορία πίστεως) and through the contemplation of their husbands with their intelligence (νοῦς) (Strom. IV 20). In fact, Christian thought had all the conceptual tools it needed to justify the inclusion of women within the Church long before the birth of Neoplatonism. One need only look at the famous maxim of Saint Paul, who declares, in his epistle to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). According to  ὡμολόγηται δ’ ἡμῖν τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν κατὰ γένος ἕκαστον τὴν αὐτὴν καὶ ἴσχειν ἀρετήν. Οὐκ ἄλλην τοίνυν πρὸς τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα φύσιν ἔχει ἡ γυνή, ἄλλην δὲ ὁ ἀνὴρ φαίνεται. Ἀλλ’ ἢ τὴν αὐτήν, ὥστε καὶ τὴν ἀρετήν. Εἰ δὲ ἀνδρὸς ἀρετὴ σωφροσύνη δήπουθεν καὶ δικαιοσύνη καὶ ὅσαι ταύταις ἀκόλουθοι νομίζονται, ἀνδρὶ μόνῳ ἐναρέτῳ εἶναι προσήκει, γυναικὶ δὲ ἀκολάστῳ καὶ ἀδίκῳ; ἀλλὰ ἀπρεπὲς τοῦτο καὶ λέγειν. Σωφροσύνης οὖν ἐπιμελητέον καὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ τῆς ἄλλης ἀρετῆς ἁπάσης ὁμοίως μὲν γυναικί, ὁμοίως δὲ ἀνδρί, ἐλευθέρῳ τε καὶ δούλῳ, ἐπειδὴ μίαν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ἀρετὴν εἶναι τῆς αὐτῆς φύσεως συμβέβηκεν. 38

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Schüssler  Fiorenza (1983/1986, p.  303), this epistle reminds us that among Christians, there can be no structure of domination of any kind. This maxim, which consecrates the equality of all the baptized within the community of believers, can also be read in parallel with the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus tells his disciples not to exercise power over their fellows (Matt 20:25–26). This is why women, in the first centuries of the Church, were allowed to play important roles inside their communities, as evidenced by the well-known ministries of Chloe, Prisca and Phoebe.39 How, then, can we explain that this inclusive attitude, which is encouraged both by the Christian Scriptures and later by Neoplatonism, has not survived beyond the first centuries of the Church? The answer is far from obvious, but we can fairly say that among the Christian intelligentsia, the influence of a patriarchal culture—which is incompatible with the ideal of equality promoted by the Gospels—was detrimental to women’s inclusion. As Clark (1994, p. 156) stresses, most of the Early Fathers of the Church found no interest in the defence of equality for all believers: their interpretation of the Bible, which was highly selective and biased, was more interested in justifying women’s submission because of their so called “natural” inferiority. In this regard, the example of John Chrysostom speaks for itself: while carefully ignoring the Epistle to the Galatians or the passage of Matthew that we have quoted above, he cites only the Epistle to the Ephesians to justify women’s submission to their husbands (John Chrysostom, Homely XX, Eph. 9). “Man,” says Paul, “is the head of woman as Christ is the head of the Church” (Eph 5:22), and thus a woman’s piety should be anchored in submission, and more specifically in submission through marriage. This nuptial symbol is at the very heart of Christianity, for it expresses the union between Christ and his Church, which is in turn expressed through the union between man and woman. This symbol also introduces a sexual differentiation, namely a conception of the nature of woman according to which women are seen as complementary and irreducible to the human nature of man: if men actively incarnate the salvation of Christ, women only fulfill a passive role insofar as salvation is received through men (Melançon 1985, p. 216). In this conception, it is difficult not to perceive the influence of Aristotle’s biology, which clearly prevailed over the promises of equality. Like Plato before them, the Christians of the first centuries of our era did not all subscribe to the prescriptions deriving from their own Gospels. Neoplatonists, however, managed to set themselves entirely apart from them on the subject of women’s presence within their circles. Disregarding the cultural mores of their time, they stuck to the logical implications of their interpretation of Plato’s psychology and simply applied them.

 Paul recognized Phoebe as a deaconess: “I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church that is at Cenchreae: that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever matter she may have need of you: for she herself also hath been a helper of many, and of mine own self” (Rom 16:1–2). Prisca is mentioned and praised in the same fashion for the work she accomplished at Paul’s side (Rom 16:3).

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12.5.3  Neoplatonic Originality Even if the conception of the soul which supports equality between men and women is not exclusive to Neoplatonists, this brief comparison with the Church Fathers shows that it has been more firmly asserted by Neoplatonists than by any Christian thinker. In fact, we cannot find such radicalisation of Plato’s ideas, nor an argued defence of equality between men and women, among other philosophical schools.40 In their inclusion of women, Neoplatonists go beyond Plato’s idea that the best of all women could never be equal to the best of all men: for Porphyry and Plotinus, true equality between men and women is required not only for their will to progress towards the Intellect and to detach themselves from bodily and earthly goods, but also to ensure the coherence of their psychology.

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Karamanolis, G. (2007). Porphyry’s notion of empsychia. In G. Karamanolis & A. Sheppard (Eds.), Studies on Porphyry, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies supplement 98 (pp. 91–109). Institute of Classical Studies. Konstan, D., & Walsh, R. (2016). Civic and subversive biography in antiquity. In K. De Temmerman & K. Demoen (Eds.), Writing biography in Greece and Rome. Narrative technique and fictionalization (pp. 26–43). Cambridge University Press. Lambropoulou, V. (1995). Some Pythagorean female virtues. In R. Hawley & B. Levick (Eds.), Women in antiquity: New assessments (pp. 122–134). Routledge. Melançon, L. (1985). La symbolique liturgique. Prêtre et pasteur, 88(4), 212–218. Michalewski, A. (2017). Vivre en philosophe. Signification de la philosophia dans la Vie de Plotin. In P. Vesperini (Ed.), Philosophari: Usages romains des savoirs grecs sous la République et sous l’Empire (pp. 535–562). Classiques Garnier. O’Brien Wicker, K. (1989). Porphyry’s Ad Marcellam: Marriage and the practice of philosophy. In R. F. Sutton Jr. (Ed.), Daidalikon (pp. 415–424). Bolchazy Carducci. O’Meara, D. (1994). Political life and divinization in Neoplatonic philosophy. Hermathena, 157, 155–164. O’Meara, D. (2003). Platonopolis: Platonic political philosophy in late antiquity. Clarendon Press. O’Meara, D. (2006). Patterns of perfection in Damascius’ Life of Isidore. Phronesis, 51(1), 74–90. Plant, I. (2007). Women writers of ancient Greece and Rome: An anthology. Oklahoma University Press. Pomeroy, S. (2013). Pythagorean women: Their history and writings. Johns Hopkins University Press. Saffrey, H.-D., Segonds, A.-P., & Luna, C. (2002). Marinus: Proclus ou Sur le bonheur. Les Belles lettres. Schultz, J. (2019). Conceptualizing the ‘female’ soul – a study in Plato and Proclus. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 27(5), 883–901. Schüssler Fiorenza, E. (1986). En mémoire d’elle. Essai de reconstruction des origines chrétiennes selon la théologie féministe (M. Brun, Trans.). Cerf. (Original work published 1983). Sorabji, R. (2007). Porphyry on self-awareness, true self, and individual. In G.  Karamanolis & A. Sheppard (Eds.), Studies on Porphyry, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies supplement 98 (pp. 61–69). Institute of Classical Studies. Van Hoof, L., & Van Nuffelen, P. (2015). The social role and place of literature. In L. Van Hoof & P. Van Nuffelen (Eds.), Literature and society in the fourth century AD (pp. 1–15). Brill. Waithe, M. E. (Ed.). (1987). A history of women philosophers, volume I: Ancient women philosophers, 600 B.C.–500 A.D. Martinus Nijhoff. Watts, E. J. (2011). Doctrine, anecdote, and action: Reconsidering the social history of the last Platonists (c. 430–c. 550 C.E.). Classical Philology, 106(3), 226–244. Watts, E. J. (2017). Hypatia: The life and legend of an ancient philosopher. Oxford University Press. Whittaker, H. (2010). A philosophical marriage: Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella. In L.  Larsson Lovén & A. Strömberg (Eds.), Ancient marriage in myth and reality (pp. 43–54). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Wider, K. (2006). Women philosophers in the ancient Greek world: Donning the mantle. Hypatia, 1, 21–62. Wilberding, J. (2008). Automatic actions in Plotinus. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 34, 443–477. Williams, J. (2014). Letter writing, materiality, and gifts in late antiquity: Some perspectives on material culture. Journal of Late Antiquity, 7(2), 351–359. Worms, A.-L. (2010). La beauté d’Hélène ou la médiation du Beau dans les Traités 31 (V,8) et 48 (III,3) de Plotin. Methodos, 10. https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.2410

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Mathilde Cambron-Goulet  is an associate professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, département d’éducation et pédagogie. Her work is dedicated to scholarly practices, educational doctrines, and orality and literacy in philosophical works from antiquity. She is particularly interested in the impact of scholarly practices on sociability and on the sense of belonging in ancient intellectual communities. François-Julien Côté-Remy  is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Université du Québec à Montréal. His studies focus on the medicalization of spiritual distress in the context of end-of-life care. As a former student in philosophy, he is also interested in ancient philosophy, and more specifically in Plato’s quarrel with the sophists.

Chapter 13

Soul, Gender and Hierarchy in Plotinus and Porphyry: A Response to Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy’s “Plotinus and Porphyry on Women’s Legitimacy in Philosophy” Jana Schultz

Abstract  In this paper, I will first add some thoughts on Cambron-Goulet and Côté-Remy’s analysis of the tension in Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s philosophy between (1) the concept of the soul as genderless and (2) the conceptual link between the soul becoming vicious and the soul becoming effeminate. I will argue that—despite of the emancipatory impulses in their philosophies—both Plotinus and Porphyry stick to conceptual connections which are constitutive for patriarchic discourses, especially to the conceptual link between being human, being male and being rational which makes women “the other.” In the second part of my paper, I will discuss the question of whether the emphasis Plotinus and Porphyry put on the universal nature of the soul helps to explain why they suppress the hierarchy between souls born in male bodies and souls born in female bodies which Plato develops in the Timaeus. I will argue that there is nothing in Plotinus’ conception of the universal nature of soul which principally excludes a hierarchy between the souls of men and the souls of women, so that his emphasis of the universal nature of soul cannot explain his passing over the hierarchy of Plato’s Timaeus. Keywords  Plotinus · Porphyry · Gender · Rationality · Nature of soul · Hierarchy of souls

J. Schultz (*) Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_13

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13.1  Introduction In this paper, I will comment briefly on two aspects in Mathilde Cambron-Goulet and François-Julien Côté-Remy’s paper “Plotinus and Porphyry on women’s legitimacy in philosophy.” More precisely, I will (1) add some thoughts on the tension the authors describe between (a) the concept of a genderless soul and (b) the idea that femaleness is something to be avoided in order to detach the soul from the body, and that maleness is something to strive for in order to gain virtue. Then (2) I will provide some comments on the connection the authors suggest between the emphasis Plotinus and Porphyry put on the universal nature of soul and their suppression of the hierarchy between souls born in male bodies and souls born in female bodies, which we find in Plato’s Timaeus (42b3–c4).

13.2  T  he Soul as Genderless and the Devaluation of Femaleness As the authors argue, there is a tension in Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s attitude towards the soul and its connection to sex and gender. Both claim that the soul in its true nature is genderless, but nevertheless connect the idea of becoming virtuous with the idea of the soul becoming “male” (Sect. 12.3.2.2). This tension is best shown in Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella, where he advises Marcella not to identify with her body and its attributes and to avoid everything that makes her soul “female”: For we have been enchained by nature’s chains with which she has surrounded us: the belly, the genitals, the throat, the other bodily members, both in respect to our use and passionate pleasure in them and our fears about them. So then, if we should rise above their witchcraft and guard against their seductive snare, we have enchained what has enchained us. Therefore, do not be overly concerned about whether your body is male and female (μήτε οὖν εἰ ἄρρην εἶ μήτε εἰ θήλεια τὸ σῶμα πολυπραγμόνει); do not regard yourself as a woman, Marcella, for I did not devote myself to you as such. Flee from every effeminate element (θηλυνόμενον) of the soul as if you were clothed in a male body (ἄρρενος εἶχες τὸ σῶμα). (Porph., Ad Marc. 33, 6–16; trans. 1987)

If Porphyry really conceived maleness and femaleness as belonging solely to the body—as the first part of his advice suggests—it would be coherent to advise Marcella to detach from both of these categories in order to overcome her entanglement with the body and to regard herself simply as human or as a rational being. But far from developing his argument in this way, Porphyry prompts Marcella to dissociate herself from what is female while encouraging her to identify with what is male. And although we cannot find any advice for women to “masculinize” their souls in Plotinus, he, too, connects becoming vicious with becoming effeminate, and thereby seems to suggest that there is something like femaleness in soul and that it has to be avoided:

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For it would be inappropriate for those divinities to plan human affairs so that some men became thieves, and others kidnappers, housebreakers and temple-robbers, others again effeminate, womanish (ἄνανδροί τε ἄλλοι καὶ θήλεις) in their doings and feelings and committing indecencies. (Plotinus, Enn. IV 4 [28], 31, 53–56; trans. 1984)

In the end—despite its emancipatory aspects—Porphyry’s advice to Marcella seems to dovetail quite well with patriarchic discourses. These discourses are often based on an (implicit) conceptual link between being male and being rational, as Genevieve Lloyd emphasizes in her study The Man of Reason: It means, for example, that there are not only practical reasons, but also conceptual ones, for the conflicts many women experience between Reason and femininity. The obstacles to female cultivation of Reason spring to a large extent from the fact that our ideals of Reason have historically incorporated an exclusion of the feminine, and that femininity itself has been partly constituted through such processes of exclusion. (Lloyd 1984, p. xix)

And since many philosophical schools—including the Neoplatonists—define humans via their rationality,1 the conceptual link between being male and being rational establishes women as different, not in the symmetrical sense as “maleness is different to femaleness and femaleness is different to maleness,” but in the absolute sense of being “the other.”2 This fundamental structure of patriarchic discourses is best described by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex:3 A man never begins by positing himself as an individual of a certain sex: that he is a man is obvious. The categories “masculine” and “feminine” appear as symmetrical in a formal way on town hall records or identification papers. The relation of the two sexes is not that of two electrical poles: the man presents both the positive and the neuter to such an extent that in French hommes designates human beings, the particular meaning of the word “vir” being assimilated into the general meaning of the word “homo.” Woman is the negative, to such a point that any determination is imputed to her as a limitation, without reciprocity. […] In fact, just as for the ancients there was an absolute vertical that defined the oblique, there is an absolute human type, that is masculine. […] And she [sc. the woman] is nothing other than what man decides; she is thus called “the sex,” meaning that the male sees her essentially as a sexed being; for him she is sex, so she is it in the absolute. She determines and differentiates herself in relation to man, and he does not in relation to her; she is the inessential in front of the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute. She is the Other. (De Beauvoir 1949/2009, pp. 5–6) 1  Plotinus, for example, states that “man coincides with the rational soul (Συνδρόμου γὰρ ὄντος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τῇ λογικῇ ψυχῇ)” (Enn. I 1 [53], 7, 22–23; trans. 1984). I thank the DFG (German Research Foundation) for funding my research for this paper as part of the project “Die Frau und das Weibliche im Neuplatonismus/Women and the Female in Neoplatonism” (WI 3873/4-1). 2  It is also interesting how the relation between femaleness and otherness is conceptualized by Proclus. He emphasizes strongly that in his metaphysical system femaleness is not a deviation from maleness but an independent principle which manifests itself not only on the level of bodies and of souls but also among higher metaphysical entities (In Ti. III 292, 28–293, 5). However, as metaphysical principles, maleness is strongly associated with sameness and femaleness with otherness (Theol. Plat. IV 79, 20–80, 6), so that here also women (and other female entities) can be described as representing otherness. 3  As Zeitlin (1996, p. 53) argues, the conceptualization of women as “the other” is also present in many origin myths in which men’s existence is taken as “a self-evident or spontaneous fact” while the existence of women is secondary and requires “a motive, a reason, a purpose.” Famous examples are Hesiod’s myth of Pandora and the creation of Eve in Genesis (2:20–2:24).

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The conceptual connection between being male and being human, on the one hand, and between being female, being different, and being a gender, on the other, puts women into a difficult position, for while being male and being human seem to go naturally together for men, women must decide whether they want to be simply human, or if they want to be their gender. And that is precisely the position in which Porphyry places Marcella with his advice to “flee every effeminate element of the soul,” even if his intention is limited to motivating her to live a virtuous and philosophical life. Thus, although I completely agree with the authors that the Neoplatonists are an impressive example of an ancient school which theoretically supported the equality of men and women and in practice included many women as students and teachers, their example demonstrates also that even an ambitious argument for the equality of the sexes remains somewhat incomplete and is liable to fall back into patriarchic biases if fundamental conceptual links—such as the link between femaleness and otherness (maleness and sameness/humankind) or between femaleness and the body (maleness and the intellect)—are not sufficiently questioned.

13.3  T  he Universal Nature of Soul and the Differences in Rank Finally, I would like to add some comments to the discussions the authors provide regarding the Neoplatonists’ reception of Plato’s thesis of the universal nature of (human) souls, and of the idea of a hierarchy of souls4—including a hierarchy between souls born in male bodies and souls born in female bodies. The authors analyze the idea of a universal nature of human souls in Plato with reference to the Phaedrus, where Plato states that every soul which enters a human body must have contemplated the Forms prior to its birth (Phdr. 204e–250a; Sect. 12.3.1). The idea of a universal nature of soul is also found in the Timaeus, where Plato emphasizes that all souls are first born equally in male bodies and must therefore have a common nature that makes them suitable for such a body (Ti. 41e1–4; trans. 2000). As regards the hierarchy of souls, the most prominent passage for this is found in the Timaeus, where Plato states that souls which lived a vicious life are reborn in women, and afterwards in animals if they still incline to vice (Ti. 42b3–c4; Sect. 12.3.1). But the general idea of a hierarchy among human souls is also present in the Phaedrus, but there Plato does not connect this idea with the difference between men and women. Instead, he establishes a hierarchy based on the natural talents for certain tasks which arise from the fact that although all souls born in humans have contemplated the Forms, not all souls have seen all Forms, but some more and some 4  As O’Meara (1996, pp. 66–67) points out, the term “hierarchy” is not used by Plotinus (nor Plato) but was “first coined in the early sixth century A.D. by a Christian author much influenced by the later Neoplatonism of Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius.” Plotinus instead uses terms like πρότερος (prior) or ὕστερος (posterior) to establish differences in rank.

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less (Phdr. 248d1–e3). Thus, Plato connects the idea of a universal nature of soul in both the Phaedrus and the Timaeus with the idea of differences between souls which are acquired but are nevertheless stable enough to justify a hierarchy of souls. Regarding the early Neoplatonists’ reception of these aspects of Plato’s philosophy, the authors demonstrate that Plotinus and Porphyry emphasize the universal nature of soul while “suppressing the hierarchy of the Timaeus,” at least with regard to the difference between men and women (Sect. 12.3.2). In what follows, I will address two points in the authors’ discussion on why the early Neoplatonists might have passed over the hierarchy of the Timaeus which—in my view—require further consideration. The authors suggest that Plotinus’ passing over the hierarchy of the Timaeus is related to (or even justified through) the strong emphasis he lays on the universal nature of soul: The shared nature amongst humans is due to the fact that every soul originates from the same principle (the Intellect, which originates from the One), whether this soul is human, animal, vegetal, astral, or related to the elements (fire, air, earth, water). (Sect. 12.3.2.1)

However, as the authors themselves emphasize in the second part of the passage quoted above, the common origin from Intellect not only justifies assuming a universal nature of human souls, but leads to the conclusion that all souls have a common nature. Nevertheless, Plotinus clearly distinguishes different ranks of individual souls according to the kind of bodies they ensoul. For example, he describes astral souls as higher than human souls:5 These [heavenly bodies] are gods by forever not departing from those intelligible gods and by being linked to the original soul by the soul, which, so to speak, went away [to the visible world], and by this, by which they are what they are also called, they look towards Intellect, since soul for them never looks elsewhere than There. […] But they [the human souls] experienced a deeper descent because their middle part was compelled to care for that which they had gone on [sc. the human body], which needed their care. (Enn. IV 3 [27], 11, 24–12, 9; trans. 1984)

Besides the differences between individual souls, Plotinus also states that the World Soul is of higher rank than any individual soul (Enn. IV 3 [27], 6, 11–17)6 and that the hypostasis Soul is of higher rank than even the World Soul (Enn. IV 3 [27], 2, 53–59), although the World Soul and the hypostasis Soul share the origin in Intellect with the individual souls. Thus, the idea of souls having a universal nature and the idea of souls acquiring different ranks due to the kind of activities they

5  See also Caluori (2015, p. 111), who states that there is not an essential difference between divine and human souls in Plotinus but one according to external activity, due to which divine souls are always happy and blessed while human souls are not. I pass over the vegetal souls here because I do not want to go into the discussion of whether Plotinus regards plants as having souls in the full sense or as just having traces of soul. For contributions to this discussion see, for example, Caluori (2015, p. 197) and Wilberding (2015, pp. 174–176). 6  For an analysis of the relation between the World Soul and the individual souls in Plotinus, see Clark (1996, p. 287).

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perform and the kind of bodies they ensoul seem to be as interconnected in Plotinus as they are in Plato.7 This can be further demonstrated by examining how Plotinus describes the relation of the souls to the hypostasis Soul.8 Plotinus argues that all souls are potentially the same as the hypostasis Soul, because they contain all λόγοι that the hypostasis Soul contains. However, they only actualize some of these λόγοι:9 Well then, is it [sc. the individual soul] a part [of the hypostasis Soul] in the way in which a theorem that belongs to a science is said to be a part of the whole science, which continues to exist [as a whole] none the less, and its division is a kind of manifestation and activity of each individual part? In a state of affairs like this each theorem contains the whole science potentially, but the science is none the less a whole. If this is how it is with the whole soul and the others, the whole, of which the parts are parts of this kind, will not be the soul of anything, but an independent reality: so it will not even be the soul of the universe, but this will be one of the partial souls. So all [both individual souls and the soul of the universe] will be part of one, since they have the same form. (Enn. IV 3 [27], 2, 50–59; trans. 1984)

The souls become higher or lower beings depending on which λόγοι they actualize and on how their activity is directed thereby:10 And if one takes a general view on the nature of soul, the differences in souls have been mentioned in those passages too where there was talk of “seconds” and “thirds,” and it was said that all souls are all things, but each [is differentiated] according to what is active in it, that is, by one being united in actuality, one being in a state of knowledge, one in a state of desire, in that different souls look at different things and are and become what they look at; and the fullness and completion for souls is not the same for all. (Enn. IV 3 [27], 8, 11–17; trans. 1984)

To describe the differences which constitute ranks between particular souls, Plotinus even refers to the hierarchy Plato constitutes in the Timaeus and to the idea that the body mirrors the condition of the soul in the moment of birth, since a soul can only vivify a body which suits it: But [the individual soul] does not always come down the same distance, but sometimes more, sometimes less, even if it comes to the same species [of body]: each soul comes down to a body made ready for it according to its resemblance to the soul’s disposition. It is car-

7  However, for Plotinus, only a part of the soul descends into the sensible world and ensouls bodies, while the undescended part of the soul remains permanently in the intelligible realm. Thus, the differences in rank discussed here seem to concern only the descended part of soul, not the undescended one which is unaffected by the transmigrations of the descended soul, as Stamatellos (2013, pp. 61–62) argues. 8  For the thesis that the unity of soul depends more on the hypostasis Soul than on the Intellect, see also Caluori (2015, p. 37). 9  See also O’Brien (2016, p. 118). A similar point is made by Caluori (2015, p. 89) who states that although the whole thinking of the hypostasis Soul is potentially in the individual souls, they individuate themselves by thinking about something particular, especially about the body they are attached to. 10  Clark (1996, p. 279) also emphasizes that souls—when descended from the hypostasis Soul—are in danger of descending into lower and lower forms of life by forgetting more and more of their origin and by dealing with ever more particular things.

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ried there to that to which is made like it, one soul to a human being and others to different kinds of animals. (Enn. IV 3 [27], 12, 36–40; trans. 1984)11

Thus, all in all, it seems that Plotinus’ philosophical system would offer him everything needed to argue—like Plato—that souls born in female human bodies are weaker (that is, less virtuous) than souls born in male human bodies: (1) the idea that despite the universal nature of souls there are differences which are acquired but are nevertheless stable enough to justify a hierarchy of souls, (2) the idea that there is a hierarchy of bodies which mirrors the hierarchy of souls (with astral bodies as the highest, and the bodies of worms and insects as the lowest), and (3) the idea that the condition of the soul has to fit the condition of the body in the moment of birth. Surely, it is striking that Plotinus never refers to Plato’s claim that there are differences in rank between souls born in male bodies and souls born in female bodies. However, I think that the strong emphasis Plotinus places on the universal nature of soul cannot explain this fact, since he can incorporate other kinds of differences in rank quite well into his concept of the universal nature of soul.12 A similar problem is connected to the second explanation the authors suggest for the fact that Plotinus conceptualizes the souls of men and women as equal and therefore regards women as equally adapted to philosophy as men, namely that all souls strive for order: In fact, since they all come from the higher realities, souls have the common desire to produce, in the sensitive realm, an order inspired by the contemplation of the Forms before metensomatosis occurred. This aspect of the Neoplatonic philosophy is important, because it shows that the inclination towards order, which is developed through philosophy, is not exclusive to men. On the contrary, it is an inclination present in all souls, including women’s. (Sect. 12.3.2.1)

Here, again, the fact that the inclination towards order is shared by all souls shows that it does not exclude a hierarchy. The common striving for order seems to be perfectly compatible with the idea that certain souls are suited for higher tasks and others for lower tasks,13 like an astral soul imposing order by moving a celestial

 As Stamatellos (2013, p. 57) argues, the very fact that Plotinus—unlike later Neoplatonists, such as Proclus—regards it as possible that a human soul is reborn in animals shows that there is no fundamental, i.e. essential, difference between souls vivifying these kinds of bodies; this supports the claim that Plotinus emphasizes the universal nature of soul more strongly than other Platonists. However, that does not exclude that souls embodied in animals have a lower rank as long as they are connected to a specific kind of body, because they have descended farther from their origin. 12  It is interesting that Porphyry—although he never claims that there is a hierarchy between souls born in male bodies and souls born in female bodies—mentions being effeminate as a factor influencing the reincarnation of souls. However, he does not state that souls which make themselves effeminate (θηλυνθείσῃ) are reborn in women, but rather in bodies which are “moon-like (σεληνοειδές)”. See Porphyry, Sententiae 29, 27–28. 13  An example is discussed by Caluori (2015, pp.  122–123), who analyzes how the astral souls assisting the World Soul in ordering the heavens do so by forming a “chain of authority,” in which they fulfill different tasks which are nevertheless directed to the common goal of establishing a perfect harmony. 11

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body in ever the same way and a soul of a bird imposing order by making the bird build its nest, care for its young, and search for food. Thus, again, it does not seem impossible to claim that, although they share the common task of imposing order, souls born in males and souls born in females fulfill different tasks within the ordering of the cosmos, whereby the tasks fulfilled by the souls born in males are of higher value. Indeed, we can find this position in the writings of the late Neoplatonist Proclus. He shares the idea that souls are commonly responsible for imposing order on the cosmos, but nevertheless emphasizes that on all levels of reality where male and female principles work together, the higher tasks are fulfilled by what is male and the lower by what is female: Even where gender had been divided, male and female of the same rank have the same tasks, it is accomplished in an initial way by the male, and in a subordinate way by the female. Hence in mortal creatures too nature has revealed the female to be weaker in all things than the male. (Proclus, In Ti. I 46, 21–25; trans. 2006)

Thus, the idea of the common task of imposing order onto the sensible world cannot explain why Plotinus passes silently over Plato’s claim that souls reborn in women are weaker than souls reborn in men, since it is principally compatible with the idea that souls of men and women are of different value or strength and therefore have different tasks (or fulfill the same tasks with a different degree of perfection). All in all, although I agree with the authors that (1) the early Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry put a strong emphasis on the universal nature of soul (especially when compared to later Neoplatonists like Proclus) and that (2) it is striking that they pass over Plato’s claim that souls born in women are souls which have been vicious in their former life as men, I think that the question of how these two aspects of their philosophy are related needs further examination.

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Secondary Sources Caluori, D. (2015). Plotinus on the soul. Cambridge University Press. Cambron-Goulet, M., & Côté-Remy, F.-J. (2021). Plotinus and Porphyry on women’s legitimacy in philosophy. In I.  Chouinard, Z.  McConaughey, A.  Medeiros Ramos, & R.  Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Clark, S. R. L. (1996). Plotinus: Body and soul. In G. P. Lloyd (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Plotinus (pp. 275–291). Cambridge University Press. De Beauvoir, S. (2009). The second sex (C.  Borde & S.  Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1949). Lloyd, G. (1984). The man of reason. “Male” and “female” in Western philosophy. Routledge. O’Brien, C. (2016). Plotinus on the soul’s logos as the structuring principle of the world. In J.  Halfwassen, T.  Dangel, & C.  O’Brien (Eds.), Seele und Materie im Neuplatonismus/Soul and matter in Neoplatonism. Universitätsverlag Winter. O’Meara, D. (1996). The hierarchical ordering of reality in Plotinus. In G.  P. Lloyd (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Plotinus (pp. 66–81). Cambridge University Press. Stamatellos, G. (2013). Plotinus on transmigration: A reconsideration. Journal of Ancient Philosophy, 7, 49–64. Wilberding, J. (2015). Neoplatonists on the causes of vegetative life. In A.  Marmodoro & B.  D. Prince (Eds.), Causation and creation in late antiquity (pp.  171–185). Cambridge University Press. Zeitlin, F. I. (1996). Playing the other. Gender and society in classical Greek literature. University of Chicago Press. Jana Schultz  holds a position as Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin in the DFG project Women and the Female in Neoplatonism at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research focuses on Plato and the Neoplatonic tradition, especially on Platonic and Neoplatonic metaphysics, psychology and aesthetics. She is the author of Formung und Umwendung der Seele. Eine Rechtfertigung ambivalenter Darstellungen in der Literatur im Rahmen von Platons Politeia (Lang 2017) and coeditor of Plato’s Non-Rational Soul (Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 20) (mentis 2017).

Chapter 14

Women and Philosophy in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus Alexandra Michalewski

Abstract  This paper examines some aspects of the place of women in Plotinus’ school, on the basis of Porphyry’s account given in the Life of Plotinus (Plot.). Firstly, I will recall how Plotinus, who allows equal dignity to all souls, regardless of gender, provides an open teaching equally directed to women and men. Secondly, I will draw attention to the fact that Plotinus never evokes any female deficiency in his discussion of moral weakness. He rather uses examples based on children’s behaviors, as is the case in the ethical treatises of the first Ennead, as well as in the famous episode of the wet nurse described in Plot. 3. Keywords  Women · Plotinus’ school · Education · Virtue · Nurse · Child

Nowhere in his corpus does Plotinus concern himself with women’s relation to philosophy, nor does he discuss women’s specific roles, for instance in the life of the city. Nothing is to be found in his work that is comparable to Plutarch, who devoted an entire book, The Virtues of Women, to the heroic deeds of women of the past, their portraits providing the feminine counterpart to those celebrated in the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. However, Plotinus’ silence has a specific cause: far from ascribing a specifically gendered virtue (aretê) to them, he does not consider that women constitute a case separate from men—neither in the process of accessing virtue, nor in the possibility of exercising a philosophical way of life. M. Cambron-­ Goulet and F.-J. Côté-Remy’s paper sheds light on this particular trait of Plotinus’ philosophy, which is grounded in the doctrine according to which the soul as such is not gendered. As the authors remind us, this kind of attitude supposes a selective lecture of Platonic texts, which do bear a tension: some are linked to the traditional doctrine that women’s souls are inferior to men’s (Tim. 42a, 90e–91a), while others tend on the contrary to advocate some kind of equality, at least to a certain extent in the context of an ideal city (Resp. V 452–456).

A. Michalewski (*) Centre Léon Robin (CNRS—Sorbonne Université), Paris, France © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_14

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Plotinus1 roots his position in the palinode of the Phaedrus (249e–250a), where Socrates says that “every soul” having contemplated the Forms before incarnation will animate the body of a human being—without any mention of gender. For Plotinus, the soul is indeed the last reality of the intelligible world, and the intelligible ignores any sexual difference. The human soul thus escapes sexuation through its intellective dimension. Plotinus’ silence on the place of women in philosophy does not originate in some alleged weakness; on the contrary, for him, any human being as such, man or woman, has the capacity to rise to the intelligible and thus realize the only life worth living (Stemich 2006). If Plotinus’ treatises remain silent on women’s relation to philosophy, the Life of Plotinus on the other hand teems with indications on the matter. In accepting that the Life of Plotinus is not a mere collection of bibliographical notes but Porphyry’s illustration, using his master’s life, of the program for ethical accomplishment advocated in the treatises, one sees how the place of women in the school perfectly reflects Plotinus’ theses on the nature of the soul. I. Koch (2017) showed in a stimulating paper why philosophical schools were the only space in antiquity where women could have a place in their own right, sometimes on equal footing to men. This, according to I. Koch, was due to the very particular domestic status schools had, being “entities which, in the exterior space of the city, are structured like a social interior, like an oikos. The school’s interiority is not the women’s purely domestic interiority of the oikos, but nor does it have the structure of a civic assembly: the school has a form that allows it to partially escape the great gendered division of space that structures ancient societies” (p. 78).2 What should be stressed is that, if the particularity of this space generally allows women of the cultivated elite to partake in the intellectual life, its form—a middle ground between the domestic interiority and the exteriority of the public space—is remarkably suited for adopting the philosophical way of life Plotinus proposed, which does not admit any ontological difference between the souls of men and women. In Plotinus’ case, there is thus a kind of doctrinal specificity anchored in a space that favors women’s access to philosophy. Several women of the Roman elite, especially rich widows—such as Amphicleia and Chione—assiduously frequented Plotinus’ seminars.

1  Contrary to the Timaeus, no allusion can be found in the Enneads concerning the notion that reincarnating in a woman’s body, in itself, is downgrading. Only one passage (Enn. III 2 [47], 13, 13–15) brings this point to attention: a man who has raped a woman in this life will be reincarnated as a woman in order to be in turn victim of violence. Thus, the very fact of becoming a woman is not retribution. The individual reincarnates as a woman because becoming a woman is the means by which divine retribution will more easily be exacted. On this thorny issue, which entails a theory of an infinity of retributions (revenge), see J. Laurent (1999, pp. 132–133). 2  “des entités qui, dans lʼespace extérieur de la cité, se structurent comme un intérieur social, comme une oikos. Lʼintériorité de lʼécole nʼest pas celle de lʼoikos purement domestique des femmes, mais elle nʼa pas non plus la structure dʼune assemblée civique: lʼécole a une forme qui la fait partiellement échapper à la grande division genrée de lʼespace qui structure les sociétés antiques.”

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There were women, too, who were greatly devoted to philosophy. Gemina, in whose house he lived, and her daughter Gemina, who had the same name as her mother, and Amphicleia, who became the wife of Ariston, son of Iamblichus. (Porphyry, Plot. 9, 1–5; trans. 1969)

Amphicleia’s case brings out the fact that, quite often, the practice of philosophy was also a family affair for these women. This is a recurring fact up into late antiquity. After having frequented Plotinus’ school, Amphicleia married Iamblichus’ son. Porphyry himself married Marcella, a friend’s widow, who had a philosophical education (Porphyry, Ad Marc. 1, 3). This was also the case for Aedesia, kin to Syrianus and a philosopher herself, renowned for her great beauty and her high level of piety. First promised to Proclus before he said the god had bid him to stay single, she became the wife of Hermias, another disciple of Syrianus. Upon the early death of her husband, though finding herself a widow with two toddlers to look after, Aedesia nevertheless took care to ensure that they receive the best philosophical education under Proclus (Damascius, Life of Isidorus, fr. 124; Hartmann 2006, p. 67). Her son Ammonius later headed the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria. When she died, the honor went to the very young Damascius to deliver her eulogy. To return to Plotinus’ school, Porphyry also mentions that the school was in the house of a certain Gemina (and her daughter, also called Gemina).3 First Porphyry mentions—in chapter 7—men’s place in Plotinus’ school, and only later—in chapter 9—does he mention women’s, after chapter 8 is dedicated to the way Plotinus worked. U.  Hartmann (2006, p.  54, n. 27) understands this fact as an indication allowing us to qualify the assertion made by M.-O. Goulet-Cazé (1982, p. 239) that Plotinus’ school developed an “egalitarian conception of men and women.” That is insufficient evidence to support his claim, to say the least. This, however, should be noted: Porphyry distinguishes at least two kinds of attendees in Plotinus’ seminars. The first are those Porphyry calls “authentic philosophers,” insofar as they strive to spread and defend Plotinus’ philosophy, especially by writing treatises, as was the case for Amelius or Porphyry. But a wealth of attendees also took his seminars, either in an assiduous and committed way, putting the precepts into practice, or in a looser way. It is quite probable that Gemina, mother and daughter, just like the widow Chione, belonged to the category of zealous listeners whose lives conform to the philosophical model Plotinus taught. The difficulty in precisely determining the place occupied by women in the school also comes from the manifold meanings of philosophos: the adjective can just as well designate a professional practice, a social role, and a certain moral quality (Michalewski 2017). These women definitely must have possessed a broad culture and a mastery of the doctrines, and they must also have been capable of following the seminars of the master and of participating by asking questions and suggesting interpretations, as the attendees were encouraged to do (Porphyry, Plot. 3, 35–37).4 3  This Gemina had already in the seventeenth century attracted the attention of Gilles Ménage, friend of Madame de Sévigné and of Madame de La Fayette; his Historia Mulierum Philosopharum counts her among the seven women identified as having belonged to a Platonic school. 4  According to P. Vassilopoulou (2003, p. 131), Plotinus’ educational method, encouraging debates and questions in the classroom, “is particularly relevant to contemporary pedagogical debates

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The Life of Plotinus provides all the aforementioned pieces of evidence concerning the important role women played in Plotinus’ school, as well as some additional evidence. Indeed, the first mention of a woman’s role occurs in chapter 3, with the nurse episode:5 Up to the age of eight, though he was already going to school, he used to keep going to his nurse and baring her breasts and wanting to suck (θηλάζειν προθυμεῖσθαι); but when someone once told him he was a little pest (ἀτηρόν), he was ashamed and stopped. (Porphyry, Plot. 3, 2–7; trans. 1969)

Several elements should be noted here. First, this is the only anecdote that refers to a personal incident from Plotinus’ childhood, who refused to speak about his parents or about his date of birth, as if to signify that the soul’s descent into his body and the beginning of his incarnate existence were not worth mentioning. Second, Porphyry discloses that this anecdote was often brought forth (πολλάκις διηγεῖτο) in Plotinus’ conversations (Porphyry, Plot. 3, 2). Coming to the age of reason supposes that the child distances himself from the nurse and turns towards a rational life.6 Rather than discrediting the feminine figure of the wet nurse,7 it seems that the reader of the Life of Plotinus is invited to reflect here upon the status of the child, echoing the doctrines developed in the treatises. Indeed, the nature of the child is often brought up in the first Ennead, where Porphyry gathered the treatises relative to the incarnated life and to ethics. Thus, it is noted in Enn. I 1 [53], 11, 1–3 that the child activates much more the lower part of the soul linked to the body than its rational power (Aubry 2004). The lower part predominates in him, and the power of the intelligible can only be feebly felt. For this reason, heeding only his impulsions,8 the child throws himself eagerly to suckle raised by feminist theorists.” 5  The nurse episode gave rise to abundant secondary literature. According to E. R. Dodds (2001, p.  91), this episode could have interested Freud: “It would fit Freud’s suggestion that mystical experience, with its sense of infinite extension and oneness with the Real, may represent a persistence of infantile feeling in which no distinction is yet drawn between ‘self’ and ‘other,’ a feeling which ‘could co-exist as a sort of counterpart with the narrower and more sharply outlined ego-­ feeling of maturity’.” For a status quaestionis of the interpretations of the nurse episode, see P. Kalligas (2014, p. 27). 6  C. Tresnie (forthcoming) stresses the fact that Porphyry inserted the episode of the nurse in his Life of Plotinus in order to show that Plotinus, at the beginning of his embodied life, was not perfect—as the child’s attitude reveals. Indeed, if Plotinus’ soul were already perfect, it would not have incarnated into a body. The very fact that Plotinus was born is evidence that he still had to reach perfection. Tresnie relates this strange episode with Plotinus’ quest for a worthy master (Porphyry, Plot., 3, 6–13). From this point of view, all the episodes of Plotinus’ life could be seen as steps in a way of self-improvement: “His tribulations are important to emphasize his evolution, which culminates in his death […]. Plotinus’ soul, having lived the life of a wise man, became a daemon, free from the bounds of the body and from the risk of any future incarnation, after a long evolution.” 7  Cicero (Tusc. III 1) thus notes that no sooner do the seeds of truth appear in the child’s soul than the nurses obscure them by pouring false opinions in their soul. 8  The verb prothumein used here highlights the irrational dimension of the child’s desire. Originally having a sexual connotation in Stoicism, it expresses blind and thoughtless attraction. For instance,

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on his wet nurse. Enn. I 1 [53] is the penultimate treatise written by Plotinus, and the first one of the Enneads. In his edition, Porphyry gave the title in two stages: “What is the Living Being, and what is Man?” (Porphyry, Plot. 24, 19), the point being that, in order to find one’s true self, one must go beyond the level of the empirical self. The genuine self is finally reached after having exerted itself to forsake the passions and the excessive solicitations of the incarnated life, exertion through which the soul detaches itself from its bonds to the sensible and turns towards itself and its principle. If we only mobilize the soul’s powers linked to the body, our identity gets mixed with the identity of the compound that only lives the sensible life. On the other hand, if we stop actualizing the inferior part of our soul exceeding what is absolutely required for the incarnated life, our soul can actualize its intellective dimension, be conscious of it, and make it its own. However, childhood is typically the time of life when passions manifest themselves: if, in Plotinus’ treatises, there is an image for ethical weakness and deficiency, it is not to be found on the side of women, but rather children. In Enn. I 4 [46], Plotinus develops the following image: our emotivity is like a child in us; he who still experiences fear does not yet possess perfect virtue, and is not yet well established in the intelligible; he is, so to speak, but halfway there. If it is possible that a wise person may nonetheless, by distraction, experience fear, he knows how to calm it just as he would a child.9 In fact, if he is afraid at all, he is not perfect in virtue (οὐ τέλεος πρὸς ἀρετήν), but will only be halfway there. And when there is an involuntary fear in him or it occurs in him prior to his making a judgement, if this should happen with his mind elsewhere, the wise person, attending to it, will drive it away from himself, and he will put a stop to the pains of what is in a way the child acting up in himself, either by threats or by reasoning; but it will be a threat made in an unaffected state like a child shocked into silence by a severe look. (Enn. I 4 [46], 15, 15–21; trans. 2018)

The wise person’s gentleness towards the irrational part of himself that he calms down without passion is opposed to the violence of the man scolding the seven-­ year-­old Plotinus. He offends the child by calling him ἀτηρός, which literally means he who is misled by the goddess Ate. As Agamemnon recounts in the Iliad, Ate’s blindness is the source of all the great catastrophes; she is also the impulse behind tragedies: Ate misleads humans and brings them to upturn the normal course of events and act against the order of the world.10 Nothing is more opposed to r­ ationality in Enn. IV 3 [27], 13, 19 prothumia designates the urge of the soul to unite itself to the body, which is comparable to the urge to marry a woman (ὡς πρὸς γάμων φυσικὰς προθυμίας). 9  Fear is, according to Plotinus, characteristic of childhood emotions (Enn. I 4 [46], 8, 27). In the child’s life, the powers of the sunamphoteron, the composite of body and of a “trace of the soul” are predominant. Plotinian psychology is a combination of Platonic tri-partition and Aristotelian doctrine; and as E. K. Emilsson (1998) has rightly pointed out, according to Plotinus the Platonic irascible element (which forms the basis of his discussion of desire and fear) becomes a function of the vegetative soul (pp. 345–346). The child is thus prone first to emotions such as fear, anger and desire. Even if these feelings arise from him, he does not master them, no more than insane people or animals do (Enn. VI 8 [39], 2, 1–8). 10  Socrates links this adjective to Atreus’ destructive temperament in Cratylus, 395c1–2.

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and philosophy than this blind madness. Such a striking description illustrates the importance for the child to start taking the path of rationality at the right time by progressively detaching himself from the useless callings of corporeal life. It is the beginning of the learning of virtue, which requires leaving childhood behind. The more the soul rises back to its intelligible principle, the more it coincides with its own nature and ceases to be monopolized by the worries of the external world. It can thus start making use of a principle it has in itself, which is free. Freedom, according to Plotinus, is not the conquest of a subjective freedom, but the power to deliver oneself from the bonds of the sensible. Making use of this “free principle (eleuthera archê)” (Enn. III 3 [48], 4, 7) consists for the soul in realizing what its own nature is, which is being an intelligible reality. Every young person, regardless of whether the individual is male or female, can and must be educated to virtue (Porphyry, Plot. 9, 9–12). In this fashion, the nurse episode tends to suggest that, once past childhood, anyone can start learning rationality and the practice of virtue, and begin treading the path of philosophy. In embarking upon this path, one discovers that it is possible to engage in another kind of relation with women, one that differs from the primitive relation children have with their nurse—and to see in women genuine intellectual partners. Acknowledgments  Translation from the French by Zoe McConaughey.

References Primary Sources Plotinus. (2004). Traité 53, (I, 1) (G. Aubry, Trans.). Cerf. Plotinus. (2018). The Enneads (L. P. Gerson, Ed., G. Boys-Stones, J. M. Dillon, R. A. H. King, A. Smith, J. Wilberding, & L. P. Gerson, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Porphyry. (1969). Porphyry on the life of Plotinus and the order of his books (A. H. Armstrong, Trans.). Loeb Classical Library, 440. Harvard University Press.

Secondary Sources Cambron-Goulet, M., & Côté-Remy, F.-J. (2021). Plotinus and Porphyry on women’s legitimacy in philosophy. In I.  Chouinard, Z.  McConaughey, A.  Medeiros Ramos, & R.  Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Dodds, E. R. (2001). Pagan and Christian in an age of anxiety. Cambridge University Press. Emilsson, E. K. (1998). Plotinus on the emotions. In J. Sihvola & T. Engberg-Pedersen (Eds.), The emotions in Hellenistic philosophy (pp. 339–363). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Goulet-Cazé, M.-O. (1982). L’arrière-plan scolaire de la Vie de Plotin. In L. Brisson, M.-O. Goulet-­ Cazé, R. Goulet, & D. O’Brien (Eds.), Porphyre, La Vie de Plotin, I. Travaux préliminaires et index grec complet (pp. 231–327). Vrin.

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Hartmann, U. (2006). Spätantike Philosophinnen. Frauen in den Philosophenviten von Porphyrios bis Damaskios. In R. Rollinger & C. Ulf (Eds.), Frauen und Geschlechter (Vol. 1, pp. 43–79). Böhlau. Kalligas, P. (2014). The Enneads of Plotinus. Volume 1: A commentary. Princeton University Press. Koch, I. (2017). Les femmes philosophes dans l’Antiquité. L’Enseignement philosophique, 67(3), 73–79. Laurent, J. (1999). La réincarnation chez Plotin et avant Plotin. In L’homme et le monde selon Plotin (pp. 115–137). ENS éditions. Michalewski, A. (2017). Vivre en philosophe: Signification de la philosophia dans la Vie de Plotin. In P. Vesperini (Ed.), Philosophari. Usages romains des savoirs grecs sous la République et sous l’Empire (pp. 535–562). Classiques Garnier. Stemich, M. (2006). Plotins Denken über Mann und Frauen. In R.  Rollinger & C.  Ulf (Eds.), Frauen und Geschlechter (Vol. 2, pp. 279–288). Böhlau. Tresnie, C. (forthcoming). Biography as implicit philosophical polemics: Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and Iamblichus’ Pythagorean Life. In Proceedings of the 8th international Lectio conference “Polemics, rivalry and networking in Greco-Roman antiquity”, 12–14 December 2018, Leuven. Vassilopoulou, P. (2003). From a feminist perspective: Plotinus on teaching and learning philosophy. Women: A Cultural Review, 14(2), 130–143. Alexandra Michalewski  is a research fellow at the CNRS (Centre Léon Robin, Sorbonne Université). Her work focuses on Plotinus and the ancient Platonic tradition (La puissance de l’intelligible. La théorie plotinienne des Formes au miroir de l’héritage médioplatonicien, Leuven University Press, 2014; co-edited with M.-A. Gavray, Les principes cosmologiques du platonisme. Origines, influences et systématisation, Brepols, 2017). She focuses more specifically on the question of the nature and causality of intelligible Forms and the receptions of Aristotelianism in the context of the emergence of Platonic commentarism. She has also devoted studies to Plotinus’ ethical theory (e.g. “Vivre en philosophe. Signification de la philosophia dans la Vie de Plotin,” in P.  Vesperini (Ed.), Philosophari, Usages romains des savoirs grecs sous la République et sous l’Empire, Classiques Garnier, 2017, pp. 535–562; “Plotinus on music, rhythm and harmony,” in F.  Pelosi & F.  M. Petrucci (Eds.), Music and philosophy in the Roman Empire, Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 178–197). She is currently preparing a new edition and translation of the fragments of the Middle Platonist Atticus and is the co-director with Pieter d’Hoine (DWMC-KU Leuven) of a funded research project on Asclepius of Tralles’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

Part VII

The Concept of Nature in Peter Abelard

Chapter 15

Abelard’s Homo Intelligitur Puzzle: On the Relation Between Universal Understandings and a World of Singulars Roxane Noël

Abstract  What is understood when “man” is understood? This question proves troublesome for Peter Abelard’s nominalist account of universal understandings which, to be sound, must attend to things as they really are. If there are no universal things, how can universal understandings be sound? His answer, in the Treatise on Understandings, is that such understandings, far from being about nothing, are about natures. However, it is hard to see how this solves the problem, given how he states earlier in the treatise that natures are identical to individuals. In this paper, I present a reading of what he means by “nature” that allows us to make sense of his proposed solution to the problem. In addition, I contend that, for his solution to work, the relevant relation between the mind and the world is to be understood as attention (or “attending to”), instead of his previous view based on similitude. Keywords  Abelard · Understanding · Attentio · Nominalism · Nature · Trope

15.1  The Homo Intelligitur Puzzle The relation between our minds and the world we inhabit is a central theme of the Tractatus de Intellectibus, one of Peter Abelard’s late logical works in which he examines the nature of our understandings, which are acts of conceptual thought, be they simple (gathered from singular words like “cat”) or composite (corresponding to expressions, like “Siamese cat” or “Colonel is a Siamese cat”). As such, the Peripatetician of Le Pallet, as he was called by John of Salisbury, is often considered as one of the first philosophers to develop an explicitly nominalist position when it comes to universals, insofar as he holds that “any thing, wherever it exists, is

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personally distinct and found as numerically one” (TI:K, §74).1 This view, however, leads him to what I call the homo intelligitur (man2 is understood) problem, a problem which arises when considering the understandings that come from universal names, such as species names: [W]hen I hear the name “man,” which is common to many things to which it is related equally, the question is raised which thing I understand in it. But if the reply were made (as it should be) that man is understood in it, there remains the question how this is true unless this man or that man or some other man were understood here, since it is the case that any man is either this man or that man or some other man. (TI:K, §91)3

This problem is then expounded in its syllogistic form: They say that just as when man is sensed, then either this man or that man or some other man must be sensed, since any man is either this man or that man or some other man, so too they reason about the understanding by analogy to sense―namely, that if man is understood, then either this man or that man or some other man must be understood. Besides, “man” marks out nothing other than some man. Accordingly, anyone understanding “man” surely understands some man, and so understands this man or another man, which appears completely false. (TI:K, §92)4

Once broken down into premises and conclusion, the core of the argument is as follows: (P1) Anyone who understands “man” thereby understands man; (P2) Any man is either this man, that man, or this other man; (C) Therefore, either this man, that man, or this other man is understood when someone understands “man”. (P1 + P2)

Premise (P2) seems straightforwardly true, but only if we treat understanding as being analogous to sense perception. According to Abelard, even though it is true that someone who perceives a man perceives a certain individual man, this does not hold for understandings. To illustrate why this is not so, he appeals to an analogy with desire: someone who desires a hood does not necessarily desire specifically this hood, that hood, or that other hood. Just as it is possible to want a hood “in

1  “[…] quelibet res, ubicumque est, personaliter discreta est atque una numero reperitur” (TI:M, §75). 2  Throughout this article, I translate “homo” by “man,” understood as holding both the sense of “human being” and the sense of “male human being.” In doing so, I maintain the inherent ambiguity of the Latin “homo,” and I avoid mistakenly ruling out either of the possible senses. 3  “Vt, cum audio hoc nomen homo, quod pluribus commune est rebus ad quas equaliter se habet, quam rem in ipso intelligam queritur, quod si, prout oportet, respondeatur quod homo in ipso intelligitur, superest questio quomodo id uerum sit, non uel hic homo, uel ille, uel alius aliquis ibi intelligatur, cum uidelicet omnis homo aut hunc, aut illum, uel aliquem alium esse constet” (TI:M, §92). 4  “Sicut enim, inquiunt, cum homo sentitur, necesse uel hunc, uel illum, uel aliquem alium sentiri, eo uidelicet quod omnis homo sit uel hic, uel ille, uel alius, ita et de intellectibus ad similitudinem sensus, ratiocinantur, ut uidelicet, si homo intelligatur, necesse sit uel hunc, uel illum, uel aliquem alium intelligi. Preterea, homo nichil aliud sonat quam quidam homo. Vnde et qui hominem intelligit, profecto quemdam hominem intelligit, et ita hunc uel alium intelligit. Quod omnino falsum apparet” (TI:M, §93).

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general,” so it is possible to understand man “in general”; but since Abelard does not admit universal entities in his ontology, he owes us an explanation as to what exactly is understood when someone understands “man.” What he provides as an explanation is the following: Thus it isn’t necessary that if I were to understand man or have some concept in which to conceive human nature, I would thereby attend to this man or that man, since there are innumerably many other concepts in which human nature is thought of, such as the simple concept belonging to the species-name “man,” or simply of a white man or a sitting man, or even a horned man (although this never exists)―and the nature of humanity is attended to in any of these conceptions, whether with the distinctness of a definite person, e.g. Socrates or someone else, or indifferently, lacking any definiteness of person. (TI:K, §94, emphasis mine)5

Consequently, when we understand “man,” or any concept involving “man,” what we attend to is the nature of humanity. Unfortunately, as it stands, this solution does not provide an adequate response to the challenge posed by the homo intelligitur puzzle. Indeed, earlier in the treatise, the philosopher of Le Pallet states that “no nature subsists indifferently” (TI:K, §74)6 and asks rhetorically, “What else is corporeal substance in this body but this body? Or what else is human nature in this man (i.e. in Socrates) but him? Without a doubt it is nothing else, but exactly the same essentially” (TI:K, §75, emphasis mine).7 If natures are identical to individuals, it does not seem that an appeal to natures does any work to solve the initial problem, which was that universal understandings cannot be about particular individuals, nor about universal entities (because the latter do not exist). Of course, as Abelard states, “an understanding can be possessed no less if the thing were not to exist” (TI:K, §93).8 Therefore, there is no problem per se with understanding things that do not exist. However, Abelard wants to distinguish between sound (sani) and empty (cassi) understandings: while the former “pay attention to the thing as it is” (TI:K, §55),9 the latter do not. And when giving examples of each, whereas an understanding of “chimaera” is obviously empty, he states that an understanding of “man,” provided that there are existing men at the moment when it is formed, is sound. Given that universals do not exist in the realm of things (res), how does an understanding of a nature “pay attention to a thing as it is?” 5  “Non est itaque necesse ut, si hominem intelligam, uel aliquem conceptum habeam in quo naturam humanam concipiam, ideo hunc hominem uel illum attendam, cum multi alii et innumerabiles conceptus sint, in quibus humana excogitatur natura; sicut hec ipsa simplex conceptio huius specialis nominis, quod est homo, uel hominis albi simpliciter, uel hominis sedentis, uel etiam hominis cornuti, etsi numquam ille sit; et in quibuscumque conceptionibus natura humanitatis attenditur, siue cum discretione certe persone, ut Socratis uel alicuius alterius, siue indifferenter, absque ulla scilicet persone certitudine” (TI:M, §95, emphasis mine). 6  “nulla est natura que indifferenter subsistat” (TI:M, §75). 7  “Corporea quippe substantia in hoc corpore, quid est aliud quam hoc corpus? …uel humana natura in hoc homine, hoc est in Socrate, quid aliud est quam ipse? Nichil utique aliud, sed idem penitus essentialiter” (TI:M, §76, emphasis mine). 8  “[…] intellectus non minus haberi potest, etiamsi res non sit” (TI:M, §94). 9  “Sanos quidem dicimus intellectus per quoscumque ita ut sese res habet attendimus” (TI:M, §56).

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To therefore see how Abelard’s solution allows him to solve the homo intelligitur puzzle, two notions need to be clarified: the notion of “attending to,” and the notion of “nature.” I will turn to attentio first, drawing mainly upon Irène Rosier-Catach’s work. I will then devote the following sections to a discussion of the notion of natura, starting with what Abelard says about it in De Intellectibus. However, since very little is said about natures in the treatise, I will turn to other works, with special emphasis on Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ and Dialectica, where Abelard uses this notion to discuss other issues, namely modality and the definition of species. Finally, I will draw upon contemporary philosophy in an attempt to make sense of the notion of natura, by exploring an analogy with Peter Simons’ nuclear trope theory.

15.2  Understanding Universals by “Attending to” Natures From Abelard’s definition of sound understandings as paying attention to a thing “as it is,” it is clear that our thoughts must connect in some way with the condition of the external world if they are to be sound. A straightforward way to interpret this definition would be to assume that sound understandings are those for which our mental representations of the things accurately represent the way these things really are. This is a tempting interpretation, considering that this is how Abelard conceived of the relation between thoughts and extramental objects in his earlier, better-known work, the Glosses on Porphyry, contained in his Logica ‘Ingredientibus’. In this commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, Abelard develops a similitude-theory of cognition: he draws an analogy with sense-perception to show that, just as seeing is an act by which my vision is directed towards a certain visible thing, understanding is an act of the mind directed to a “likeness (similitudo),” which he also calls an “imaginary and made-up thing (res ficta)” (LI 20.20–36). It is important to note, however, that the understandings are not about these likenesses, but rather about what thing they represent. Thus, when I think of my cat Colonel, I do so by forming a mental image which resembles him: my imagination builds the image of a large Siamese cat with big, round blue eyes, a black muzzle, and so on. By means of this image, I can reflect upon Colonel and his various properties, but this act of understanding is about my cat, not about the likeness itself.10 Under such a view, an understanding’s soundness or emptiness is presumably determined by whether the “imaginary thing” it is directed to stands in a relation of likeness to an existing thing. However, by the time of the De Intellectibus, Abelard had moved away from this view. Whereas “likenesses” played a central role in the account of cognition presented in the Glosses on Porphyry, they had become a hindrance in the De Intellectibus:

 Cf. LI 315.31–32: “[… voces] intellectus de rebus constituerent, non de figmentis, sed tantum per figmenta.”

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Yet what Aristotle says—that we hardly ever have our understandings without imaginations—should, I think, be taken in this manner: as long as we are trying to examine some nature or property in a given thing through an understanding, and we want to attend to that alone, the customary manner of sensing (from which every human notion arises) forces certain things on the mind through imagination, and we don’t pay any attention to them. (TI:K, §19)11

In this passage, we can see that the mental images created by our imagination often involuntarily come to mind and can constitute an obstacle to cognition by contaminating our understanding with irrelevant or even misleading information. For example, if I try to think about the redness of my teacup, I cannot help thinking of its shape, its coldness, its hardness, and so on. Instead of the qualities of the images themselves, what becomes central to Abelard’s account of cognition is the notion of attention (attentio): what matters is not everything that comes to mind, but what we pay attention to. As such, what matters for the soundness of understandings is not the disposition/characteristics of our mental images but rather the mode of attending (modus attendendi). As Irène Rosier-Catach (2017) puts it, the recurrent notion of attentio discussed by Abelard in dealing with understandings directs him “towards an intentionalist semantics, which insists on the difference between the speaker’s act of focusing on something (the modus attendendi) and this something as existing (the modus subsistendi), and away from a semantics based on the notion of similitude.”12 The importance of this notion in the De Intellectibus, she remarks, is made clear by the number of times it is used throughout this short treatise of little more than twenty pages. Indeed, I have counted at least fifty-four occurrences of forms of the noun “attentio” or the verb “attendere,” which shows how important this notion became for Abelard. One of the main things it allows him to do is to explain how the mode of attending to something can differ from this thing’s mode of existence. Indeed, in a passage that precedes the homo intelligitur problem, Abelard raises the issue as to whether all universal understandings should be called empty: Furthermore, when anyone conceives the nature body purely and simply, attending to it only qua corporeal (namely body), or grasps any nature as universal, that is, attends to it indifferently without any personal distinctness, he surely understands it otherwise than it subsists. For it doesn’t purely subsist anywhere as it is purely conceived: wherever it exists, it has innumerable natures or properties that are hardly attended to, as mentioned; and no

 “Quod uero Aristotiles dicit, intellectus nostros minime absque imaginationibus haberi, ita accipiendum est, arbitror, quod, dum in aliqua rei per intellectum aliquam eius naturam aut proprietatem deliberare nitimur eamque solam attendere curamus, ipsa sensus consuetudo, a quo omnis humana notitia surgit, quedam per imaginationem ingerit animo, que nullo modo attendimus” (TI:M, §18). 12  Similarly, Christopher Martin (2009) speaks of an “adverbial component” in Abelard’s theory, referring to “the qualification of the act of understanding as attending to its extrinsic object in a particular way” (p. 203). 11

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nature subsists indifferently, but rather any thing, wherever it exists, is personally distinct and found as numerically one. (TI:K, §74)13

He addresses the issue by invoking two possible readings of the question as to whether every understanding is vain that attends to a thing otherwise (aliter) than it is.14 On the one hand, if we think that the adverb “otherwise” modifies the verb “attends,” then we should answer negatively. Indeed, the mode in which I understand a thing can be otherwise than a thing’s mode of subsistence. This is exactly what happens in the case of what he calls understandings by abstraction, where a nature, such as “humanity,” is examined by itself, setting aside the specific individual to which it belongs and its accidents. On the other hand, if the adverb “otherwise” is taken to modify the verb “is,” we should answer that, yes, such an understanding is vain (or empty): if we think of something as being otherwise than it really is, such as thinking that cats have wings, then surely such an understanding should be called empty. Abelard therefore draws on this notion of attention to explain that universal understandings are not necessarily empty. But that is only one part of the explanation we lack: we still need to explain what these natures are which are attended to in such understandings.

15.3  Natures in the De Intellectibus The first step in our investigation of Abelardian natures is to sum up what was learned in the passages quoted so far. From them, we know that natures are “exactly the same essentially” (TI:M, §76/TI:K, §75) as the individuals of which they are predicated, and that these individuals are “personally distinct” and “numerically one” (TI:M §75/TI:K, §74). They are “essentially the same” insofar as a thing and its nature are a singular essentia (in the twelfth-century sense, i.e. a singular concrete thing), rather than two separate things. Furthermore, individual things are “numerically one,” that is, singulars. Lastly, “personal distinctness” is that according to which each thing has its own “identity”; for example, human nature does not exist indifferently because it always has the personal distinctness of either Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc. In other words, natures always exist in a definite, given subject, to which they are essentially identical, and not as universal things that can be instantiated.

 “Preterea, cum quislibet corpoream naturam simpliciter ac pure concipit, in eo scilicet tantum attendens quod est corporea, id est corpus, aut quamlibet naturam ut uniuersalem capit, hoc est indifferenter absque ulla scilicet personali discretione eam attendit profecto aliter eam intelligit quam subsistat. Nusquam enim ita pure subsistit, sicut pure concipitur; sed ubicumque sit, innumeras, ut dictum est, aut naturas aut propritetates habet que minime attenduntur; et nulla est natura que indifferenter subsistat, sed quelibet res, ubicumque est, personaliter discreta est atque una numero reperitur” (TI:M, §75). 14  TI:M, §79/TI:K, §80. 13

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We can also remark that, in the De Intellectibus, Abelard’s examples of natures are always situated somewhere in Porphyry’s tree: he speaks of “human,” “animal,” and “body.” This seems to indicate that what he has in mind when speaking of natures is individual generic or specific substantial forms in virtue of which individuals belong to natural kinds. And, indeed, Abelard uses the notion of nature when he defines the notion of species in his Glosses on Porphyry, as will be shown in the next section. As a matter of fact, in other works, Abelard uses the notion of nature for two main purposes: to explain the modal notions of possibility and potentiality, and to define what a species is.

15.4  Natures Outside of the De Intellectibus 15.4.1  Modality and Natures Abelard discusses modality in many places, but the most substantial discussions can be found in Dialectica (De potentia naturali et inpotentia) and in Logica ‘Ingredientibus’ (commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge, Aristotle’s Categories, and Aristotle’s On Interpretation). The relevant sections discuss the notions of potentiality (potentia) and of what is possible (possibile est; possibilis). In both cases, the notion of nature is invoked because potentiality as well as possibility are defined by a negative criterion, in terms of what is not repugnant to a thing’s nature. The passages on potentia are more directly relevant to understanding what Abelard means by “natura,” since they are about what individual things can and cannot do. The passages about possibility, on the other hand, are usually about the interpretation of modal claims, like those containing the adverb “possibiliter.” However, such claims tend to be interpreted by Abelard in terms of potentiality, which is in turn reduced to lack of repugnance to nature. Therefore, I will examine how the notion of nature comes into play in the treatment of both potentiality and possibility. Christopher Martin (2003) identifies three senses in which Abelard speaks of potentiality. Sometimes, he uses the term when talking about what is possible for an individual in terms of future action; this is determined by the species to which the individual belongs, by its particular constitution, and by the circumstances. This first sense is often described as the “customary” sense of “potentiality,” insofar as it is the sense in which we tend to use the term in ordinary language.15 He also uses the notion when dealing with unqualified possibility, since he reduces such possibility to potentiality. Moreover, he sometimes uses “potentia” to simply talk about what is not repugnant to the species-nature of a thing, as when he says that “we understand no form in the name ‘capable of (potens),’ but only that which is not  When referring to this sense of “potentia,” Abelard uses the verb “soleo” with “dicere,” for example in LI 2.8, 229.34–36: “Licet enim mancus in natura possit pugnare, sicut curtatus pedes habere uel ambulare, non tamen eum ad hoc potentem dicere solemus, cum aptitudine careat” (emphasis mine).

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repugnant to nature” (Dial., 98.16–17, my translation).16 In all of these cases, nature plays a key role in determining the potentialities for an individual; potentiality can either be simply what is compatible with a thing’s nature, or that which is both compatible with a thing’s nature and possible for this thing given the circumstances. In other words, compatibility with a thing’s nature is a necessary condition for potentiality. In the Dialectica (96.34–97.1), Abelard distinguishes between two types of potentialities. Some of them are what Aristotle calls “aptitudes (aptitudines),” like the capacity to run fast, or the capacity to fall ill easily. Some others, however, are propria in the proper sense described by Porphyry in the Isagoge, meaning that they belong to all members of a species, and to them only, like rationality to human beings. Whereas potentialities of the first type are accidental (merely compatible with a thing’s nature), those belonging to the second type are substantial, and thus they are required by a thing’s nature and are even said to “occupy the nature entirely” (Dial. 96.34–97.1, my translation).17 A similar distinction is also present in the Logica ‘Ingredientibus’, when Abelard distinguishes the potentia to run easily, which is not possessed by all human beings, from the potentia to run simpliciter, which is characteristic of any human being (LI 2.8, 229.15–230.10). Potentialities of the latter type, he says, can even be called “natures” in a certain sense (LI 2.8, 229.28–31).18 Another way in which Abelard discusses modality is by analyzing modal statements, such as the ones containing the adverb “possibly (possibiliter),” like “Socrates is possibly a bishop (Socrates est episcopus possibiliter).” According to Abelard, this proposition is true, even if Socrates in fact never becomes a bishop, since being a bishop (esse episcopum) is not repugnant to Socrates’ human nature (Dial. 193.31–194.5). This is something that we know through observation of other human beings: we see that some of them are bishops, and what is found in some members of a species is possible for all members of said species (Dial. 194.1–2).19 For Abelard, this inference is warranted because all members of a species “are entirely of the same nature (eiusdem sunt omnino nature)” (Dial. 194.3, my translation). However, this statement must be read with caution. Abelard certainly does not mean by this that individuals partake in some metaphysically shared nature,

 “[…] ut nullam formam in nomine ‘potentis’ intelligamus, sed id tantum quod naturae non repugnet […]” 17  Dial. 96.34–97.1: “Sunt autem alie potentie vel inpotentie que nature proprie sunt, non aptitudinis, in eo scilicet quod non solum eas natura contulit, verum etiam eas exigit, ut rationalitas, mortalitas, immortalitas, que speciei cui insunt, naturam totam occupant nec ei per accidens, sed substantialiter insunt.” 18  “Haec enim potentia aptitudinis quorundam est, illa vero quae naturae quodammodo proprie dici potest, omnium est, quae et homini substantialis videtur, sicut potentia ambulandi, a qua gressibilis dicitur.” 19  “Quicquid enim actu contingit in uno, idem in omnibus eiusdem speciei individuis contingere posse arbitramur.” 16

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since he repeatedly denies that such a thing is possible.20 Instead, I believe what he means is simply that Socrates is a man, Plato is a man and, in this way one is a man just as much as the other is, no more and no less; they completely resemble each other in this regard. The appeal to compatibility with nature is, again, what ultimately explains possibility. As Peter King notes, this is also the case with relative modality, that is to say, possibility for someone or something (2004, p. 85). As an example, Abelard examines the proposition “Possibile est stantem sedere,” which can be interpreted in two ways (LI 430.5–9). In one sense, it can be taken to mean that it is possible for someone to be sitting while standing, in which case the statement is false. However, in another sense, it can be taken to mean that it is possible for the thing which is currently standing to be sitting at another time, in which case the statement is true: the standing thing can sit, Abelard explains, because it is not repugnant to its nature (Binini 2018, p. 342).

15.4.2  Species and Natures Just as was the case with modality, the discussions about species are scattered across many of Abelard’s works. In several places, when he examines the definition of “species,” Abelard appeals to a quote from Boethius’ commentary on the Categories; a straightforward case of this is to be found in LI 57.27–30 (my translation): “A species is the gathering of many in a single nature,” that is, the species word nominates subject things according to that in which they agree and are similar to each other. For, as Boethius testifies, a nature is the likeness of things that come into being (rerum nascentium).21

Even though Abelard misquotes Boethius (who is not defining natures (naturae) but rather “ratio naturae”), he nevertheless seems to adhere to this definition of “nature” as “the likeness of things that come into being,” which should likely be interpreted as merely saying that a nature is that something about a thing that makes it similar to another thing, and according to which these things can be subsumed under the same species. “Rerum nascentium,” for its part, refers to created, mundane things, pointing at the fact that those are presumably the only kind of thing to which the concept of nature applies. The same quote comes up in the Sententiae secundum Magistrum Petrum (§17, my translation): Of course, Boethius calls “nature” the “likeness of things that come into being,” as if to say openly that the same things are of a single nature, which are similar to one another in natural activity.22

 See, for example, Abelard’s discussion and rejection of such a view in LI 10.17–13.17.  “Species est collectivum multorum in unam naturam, id est speciale vocabulum res subiectas nominat secundum id quod conveniunt et sibi similes sunt. Natura enim est teste Boethio similitudo rerum nascentium.” 22  “Naturam quippe Boethius dicit ‘similitudinem rerum nascentium’ ac si aperte dicat easdem res esse unius naturae quae operatione naturae similes sunt ad inuicem.” 20 21

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Abelard then uses this definition to distinguish between names of natures, like “man (homo),” which are common to many things according to their resemblance, and names of individuals, like “Socrates,” which are used to mark the distinction of a specific individual.

15.4.3  Summary To summarize, in works other than the De Intellectibus, Abelard uses the notion of nature for two main purposes. On the one hand, he defines the potentialities of an individual as whatever is not repugnant to its nature. On the other hand, he defines a species as a grouping of individuals which are “of the same nature,” which should be taken as “of natures that are like each other.” In all of these cases, natures are seen as pointing to something substantial, rather than accidental, in an individual. This sheds some light on what natures do, but leaves us in the dark as to what natures are. Since Abelard only tells us so much, it will be helpful here to reconstruct his position on natures in analogy with contemporary trope theories, following in the footsteps of Martin (1992) and John Marenbon (2008, 2013) but using a different point of reference, namely Simons’ nuclear trope theory. In doing so, what I hope is not to argue for a perfect symmetry between the views of Abelard and Simons, but rather to understand better the kind of metaphysics that can underlie Abelard’s claims about natures, picking up on Marenbon’s (2008) suggestion that reenactment of a philosopher’s thoughts can involve articulating their views in the philosophical language of the historian’s own time.

15.5  Peter Abelard and Tropes 15.5.1  Contemporary Trope Theories: The Basics I will now depart from Abelard’s works per se and turn to contemporary trope theories in an effort to better explain what the philosopher of Le Pallet has in mind when he speaks of natures. In order to do so, I will briefly introduce some of the main ideas found in contemporary trope theory. I will then underline the reasons why one could be tempted to draw a parallel with Abelard’s metaphysics, and how this work has indeed been done by scholars such as Martin (1992), Marenbon (1997, 2008, 2013), and Alain de Libera (2002). However, they have mostly centered their discussion around early trope theorists such as D. C. Williams, employing an analogy which involves setting aside key elements of Williams’ view. For example, an important feature in Williams’ theory is that substances depend on the properties which mereologically constitute them, whereas medieval accounts tend to view properties as depending on the substances that bear them (Heil 2018). However, I

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believe that a comparison with Simons’ own brand of trope theory, which he calls the “nuclear trope theory,” brings us closer to what Abelard has in mind. The origin of contemporary trope theory is usually traced back to Williams’ 1953 article, “On the Elements of Being I,” where he proposes that reality is made of only one type of entity, namely “tropes,” or “abstract particulars.” For him, the objects we experience are nothing but bundles of particular properties. These properties are particular, since they have their own location in space and time. For example, my teacup is a combination of its particular redness, its shape, its temperature, and so on. The fact that there are many red things is explained without needing to postulate the existence of universal entities: there are simply individual instances that resemble each other, and they form “resemblance classes.” As for the “abstract” part, Williams claims that tropes are abstract insofar as they are a “‘thin’ or ‘fine’ or ‘diffuse’ sort of constituent, like the color or shape of our lollipop, in contrast with the ‘thick,’ ‘gross,’ or ‘chunky’ sort of constituent, like the stick in it” (1953, p. 15). For him, “concrete” and “abstract” are not two discrete categories, but are understood as a gradient: “The color-cum-shape is less abstract or more concrete or more nearly concrete than the color alone but it is more abstract or less concrete than color-plus-­ shape-plus-flavor, and so on up till we get to the total complex which is wholly concrete” (1953, p. 6). Thus, Williams’ tropes are abstract because of their degree of metaphysical simplicity; they are metaphysically “simpler” than the concrete, “full” objects we encounter in our everyday experience and which are made of these basic elements. Some other authors use “abstract” to talk about entities that are not located in space and time, but this is not what Williams has in mind. The motivation for devising such a theory is that it allows us to account for the fact that there are recurrent characters found in different objects we encounter using a very elegant, minimalist ontology that is only committed to the existence of particular tropes. The view discussed above can be characterized as representing a “bundle theory” of tropes, as it holds that objects are nothing but a group of compresent tropes, that is, tropes that are simply present in the same place. However, one of the difficulties for such a theory is to explain how a mere collection of tropes can become unified in a way that yields an individual or, in more medieval terminology, something that is one per se. This is why some other theories also recognize that properties are particulars rather than instances of a universal entity, but posit that there is some kind of substratum that holds the tropes together and accounts for the unity of the object. This idea is notoriously found in Locke but also supported by contemporary philosophers like Martin, who claims that the substratum is “that about an object that is the bearer of properties” (1980, p.  6). According to him, it is wrong to conceive of an object as a collection of compresent tropes in the same way that a crowd is a collection of compresent people. The way he sees it, neither the substratum nor the properties should be understood as parts of an object; rather, “they are the non-object things about an object” (1980, p.  8). Besides, he argues that in D.  C. Williams’ theory of tropes, the spatiotemporal region in which an object’s tropes are located acts as a substratum. Some other authors understand substrata as “bare particulars,” devoid of any properties (Bergmann 1967). And since they have no properties, we cannot “know” them through experience. In summary,

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contemporary trope theories regard properties as particulars, and can consider that the objects we encounter in our everyday experience of the world are either mere bundles of compresent tropes, or collections of tropes borne by some kind of substratum. At first glance, many aspects of Abelard’s philosophy suggest a fruitful comparison with contemporary trope theories. Indeed, the Peripatetician of Le Pallet, just like trope theorists, rejects the existence of universal entities, instead embracing a particularist ontology. Moreover, for Abelard, forms are particular: for example, Socrates’ whiteness is completely distinct from and independent of Plato’s whiteness. For these reasons, many authors have explored whether Abelard could be considered as some kind of trope theorist, and some of the limitations of this construal. The comparison was first suggested by Martin (1992), in a short passage where he simply states that Abelard, in contemporary terms, is to be characterized “as a transferable trope anti-realist” (p.  112). Martin does not offer any argument in defense of this claim, but he does provide some reasons why he thinks such a characterization is accurate. First, he sees the philosopher of Le Pallet as an anti-­ realist about universals, insofar as he clearly denies that universal res can exist. Second, in his view, Abelard’s ontology includes tropes, which are to be identified with accidental forms. Third, what Martin means by trope transferability here is that “[accidental forms] cannot exist apart from the substances to which they now adhere but before their attachment they might have gone elsewhere” (p. 112).23 However, unlike Williams, Abelard accepts substances in his ontology, which act as substrata for accidental forms. As such, even given the characterization of Abelard as a “transferable trope anti-realist,” I believe we should not make the mistake of thinking that he adheres to a bundle theory. Marenbon (1997) revisits Martin’s suggestion but goes further. Indeed, he agrees with Martin that Abelard defends a “substance-based view” and that, for him, accidents are particular and correspond to what we would call “tropes” today. However, Marenbon shows that differentiae are also tropes in Abelard’s view, as they are particular and “transferable” in much the same way as accidents. He shows how Abelard uses the scheme of Porphyry’s tree as a way to think not about universals, but about the constitution of individuals, only with a slight modification: while substance rests at the top of Porphyry’s tree, Abelard’s account of individuals takes body as its starting point. Therefore, each individual is a body which holds differentiae and accidents. For example, Socrates is a body with a particular form of animateness, one of capability-of-sensing, one of rationality, and so on. The resulting substances are, by themselves, independent essences and do not need to be individuated by their differentiae. Additionally, their identity does not depend on  One concern I have is whether this is enough to warrant talking about trope transferability, as transferability seems to imply the possibility that a trope could move from one substance to another. Marenbon (2008) discusses different kinds of transferability in more detail, which helps to clarify this issue, but I am still unconvinced that we can speak of transferable tropes in Abelard. I am leaving this debate aside, however, as I am merely presenting the views of these commentators.

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them having certain differentiae. As such, for Abelard, “particular substances are the basic building blocks of reality” (Marenbon 1997, p. 124). Whereas Martin’s suggestion was intriguing but not fully fleshed out, Marenbon offers a convincing and extensive discussion of the parallels between Abelard’s ontology and contemporary trope theory. However, de Libera (2002) urges us not to be too quick in drawing this analogy. He argues that, even if there are some similarities between Abelard’s thought and trope theory, these common points should not be overstated. In fact, he believes that William of Champeaux, a notable adversary of Abelard, comes closer to contemporary trope theory, since he holds that it is accidents that allow us to distinguish between individuals belonging to a same species (de Libera 2002, p.  498). Most notably, de Libera agrees with Marenbon that not only accidental forms but also differentiae must be considered in the discussion; however, he stresses the difficulty of combining two important principles of Abelard, namely ontological particularism (every thing that exists is a particular) and the essential individuation of the particular (substances are not individualized by their forms, nor are forms individualized by the substances: forms are particular in themselves, as are substances). De Libera is also unconvinced that Abelard’s “tropes” are transferable in any relevant sense. In light of these criticisms, Marenbon (2013) revisits his own position. He agrees that Abelard’s adherence to the Aristotelian view of substance limits the analogy with contemporary trope theories. However, he maintains his view, inspired by Martin, that the philosopher of Le Pallet admits tropes into his ontology and that those are transferable, but only in a “weak sense” insofar as, “counterfactually, they might have belonged to different subjects from those to which in fact they belong” (Marenbon 2013, p. 181). Another concern that remains is that Abelard distinguishes between tropes that are accidental and tropes that are, in today’s terms, essential (i.e. differentiae), unlike bundle theories of tropes such as Williams’. In the next sections, I will explore how an analogy with Simons’ nuclear trope theory might be more illuminating than analogies with Williams’ tropes.

15.5.2  Peter Simons’ Nuclear Trope Theory Simons (1994) presents his trope theory, which he calls the “nuclear theory,” as an alternative to both bundle theories and substratum theories. According to him, his theory combines the main advantages of both while trying to avoid their weaknesses. As we have seen, bundle theories of tropes state that objects are nothing above and beyond a group of tropes that are compresent. The main problems for this group of theories are to explain how these tropes are bundled in a way that yields a unified individual, and how to distinguish between accidental and essential tropes. Substratum theories do not seem to fare much better, for they give rise to different issues. They try to tackle the problem of unification by positing a component that is supposed to hold the tropes, such as Gustav Bergmann’s (1967) bare particulars. But since bare particulars cannot be objects of acquaintance, and since they

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have no essential properties, we obtain strange results—such as the fact that a bare particular can neither come into existence nor be destroyed except by a miracle (Simons 1994, p. 566). Additionally, the notion of a substratum has the disadvantage of being obscure: what is this substratum, and by what kind of relation is it connected to the tropes it holds? In light of these difficulties, Simons’ nuclear theory hopes to provide an account of how trope bundles, which comprise essential as well as accidental tropes, can indeed constitute a unified object, without relying on the obscure notion of a substratum. To do this, Simons proceeds with a two-step approach. First, he asks us to consider a collection of particular tropes which co-occur, and which form the nucleus of the substance. These tropes are united not because they are held by a substratum, but rather because they form a “foundational system,” a concept he borrows from Husserl. This system is formed because the tropes in it are in a relation of strong mutual foundation, where A is said to be strongly founded on B iff (1) A is necessarily such that it cannot exist unless B exists and (2) B is not a part of A (Simons 1994, p. 559). This relation is mutual when it holds true of A towards B and of B towards A. A foundational system is obtained from a collection “iff every member in it is foundationally related in it to every other, and none is foundationally related to anything which is not a member of the collection” (Simons 1994, p. 562). In that sense, it constitutes the essence of the object as it states its persistence conditions. Additionally, the nucleus is what individuates a substance while the foundation relation explains its unity, and this is done without the problems associated with bare particulars. In the second stage of the theory, Simons adds the notion of peripheral, accidental tropes, which depend on the nucleus for their existence, but which can come and go without the corruption of the whole substance. However, the nucleus itself is not dependent on the accidental tropes: although it can require accidents of a certain type, such as a color or smell, it does not require any fixed individual accident. Whereas the dependence between the tropes constituting the nucleus is mutual, the dependence between accidental tropes and the nucleus is one-way: particular accidental tropes depend on the nucleus for their existence, but the reverse does not hold. But it does not mean that every substance must be constituted following this exact same structure: Simons’ nuclear theory of tropes is flexible, insofar as it allows for the possibility of substances that either lack a nucleus or lack accidental tropes. In the former case, we would have objects without an essence (strictly contingent objects), whereas in the latter we would have objects that have no accidental properties.24 This theory also allows for embedding: a bundle of tropes consisting of a nucleus and accidental tropes could itself be included in the nucleus or periphery of another bundle. Simons does not discuss relational tropes in great detail but leaves open the possibility that relations be treated as tropes. In summary, Simons regards individual substances as foundational systems, where a nucleus is “a tight bundle that serves as the substratum to the looser bundle

 Simons (1994, p. 568) states that the “most basic building blocks of the physical universe” could possibly be devoid of peripheral tropes.

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of accidental tropes, and accounts for their all being together” (Simons 1994, p.  568). As he notes, his view is close to Aristotle’s, since, on his construal, the Philosopher would hold that “matter is the substratum, the substantial form corresponds to the nucleus, and serves as the bearer for further, non-substantial tropes” (Simons 1994, p. 568). The main difference is that Simons does not think an ultimate substratum (like Aristotle’s matter) is needed.

15.5.3  Peter Abelard and Simons’ Nuclear Trope Theory Now that I have exposed the basics of Simons’ nuclear trope theory, we shall see whether it can be fruitfully applied to Abelard’s homo intelligitur problem. Abelard contends that what is understood when “man” is understood is human nature, and that natures are nothing above and beyond individuals. In the terms of Simons’ theory, natures could be understood as the nuclei of individual substances. This requires us to accept, like Marenbon (1997, 2008, 2013), that both accidents and differentiae are particulars for Abelard, what he calls the “forms.” The solution to the homo intelligitur problem would then be the following: through an understanding of “man,” I attend to the nature of man, that is to say to the nuclear tropes of a man. Such an understanding is not of an individual, since it is acquired by abstraction, meaning that I attend only to the nuclear tropes, leaving aside the accidental ones. And even though each human being has its own particular nuclear tropes, they resemble each other enough to enable us to form an understanding that pertains to all human beings. An advantage of Simons’ theory over Williams’ clearly appears here: whereas the latter does not allow us to distinguish between tropes that are essential and those that are accidents, nuclear trope theory recognizes this distinction. And since the tropes that constitute the nucleus are characterized by the fact that their destruction brings about the corruption of the substance as a whole, we now have a clear criterion to distinguish what is part of a thing’s nature and what is not. In turn, genuine natural kinds will be the ones based on particular differentiae, which resemble each other and are found in all of the members of a given kind, allowing us to classify them under the right species and, accordingly, to understand what is possible for them. One worry for this construal is that Abelard seems closer to the Aristotelian model described by Simons, as he admits the existence of a substratum: as Marenbon explains, Abelard thinks that individual substances are made of body, to which differentiae are then added (1997, pp. 97 and 124–125). However, even though this suggests that the analogy with Simons’ theory has its limits, it does not prevent it from casting more light onto how Abelard’s intended solution to the homo intelligitur problem is supposed to work. Whatever the case may be, the goal of this section was not to see just to what extent Abelard’s theory is tantamount to Simons’, but to see how the latter can provide a helpful way to think about Abelard’s solution.

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15.6  Conclusion Faced with the problem of identifying what was understood through an understanding of a universal concept like “man,” Abelard somewhat cryptically claims that through such understandings we attend to natures (naturae). He does not say much about natures, but he makes it clear that he believes that they are nothing above and beyond individuals, and by “nature” he usually captures something substantial about an individual, rather than something accidental. This is also seen in other works, where he tends to appeal to nature when he is concerned with defining species or potentiality. I have also suggested a parallel with Simons’ nuclear trope theory, whereby natures could be understood as the nuclei of nuclear trope bundles, composed of essential tropes standing in a Husserlian relation of strong mutual foundation. Individuals are said to be of a “same nature” when their individual natures stand in a relation of likeness with one another; indeed, Abelard often relies on this notion of likeness (or resemblance), for example in his explanation of how we know that it is possible for Socrates to be a bishop based on the fact that we observe that other human beings, which resemble him, are bishops (Dial. 193.35–194.11). However, this solution leaves one question unanswered: how are we to distinguish between the similarities that are found among members of a class of individuals in virtue of their belonging to a natural kind, and the resemblances that are merely accidental? An answer can be found by looking into the parallel between contemporary trope theory and Abelard’s view of natures. Indeed, the Peripatetician of Le Pallet endorses nominalism about universals by explicitly claiming that all things that exist are particular,25 which implies that properties are, on his view, particulars too. In contemporary terms, he accepts tropes in his ontology. As Marenbon rightly notes, this point is not contentious, and it is not in and of itself an especially illuminating way of thinking about Abelard’s ontology (2008, p. 181). The important question is whether drawing a parallel with contemporary trope theory offers any useful insight with regard to interpreting his solution to the homo intelligitur problem. Here, the appeal to Simons’ trope theory helps to explain the difference between essential tropes (for Abelard, differentiae) and accidental tropes, and provides a way to distinguish one from the other. Since essential tropes stand in a relation of mutual foundation to form the nucleus of a substance, destroying one of these tropes entails the corruption of the substance. This is not true of accidents. Simons’ trope theory provides the metaphysical underpinnings for the concept of nature to work as a solution to the homo intelligitur problem, and helps in presenting a reconstruction of Abelard’s reasoning in terms that are more familiar to us. Acknowledgements  I thank Peter King for allowing me to work with a draft of his forthcoming English translation of the Tractatus de Intellectibus.

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 This view could also be described as ontological particularism.

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References Primary Sources Abelard, P. (1919–1927). Logica “ingredientibus” (B.  Geyer, Ed.). In Peter Abaelards philosophische Schriften. I: Die Logica “Ingredientibus”. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 21/1–3. Aschendorff. [= LI]. Abelard, P. (1958). Sententiae secundum magistrum Petrum (L. Minio-Paluello, Ed.). In Twelfth-­ century logic: Texts and studies (Vol. 2). Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. [= SSMP]. Abelard, P. (1970). Dialectica (L. M. de Rijk, Ed.). In Petrus Abaelardus: Dialectica (2nd ed.). Van Gorcum. [= Dial.]. Abelard, P. (1994). Des intellections (P. Morin, Ed. & Trans.). Vrin. [= TI:M]. Abelard, P. (forthcoming). Treatise on understandings (P. King, Trans.). [= TI:K].

Secondary Sources Bergmann, G. (1967). Realism: A critique of Brentano and Meinong. University of Wisconsin Press. Binini, I. (2018). “My future son is possibly alive”: Existential presupposition and empty terms in Abelard’s modal logic. History and Philosophy of Logic, 39(4), 341–356. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/01445340.2018.1432925 de Libera, A. (2002). Des accidents aux tropes. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 4(4), 479–500. Heil, J. (2018). Accidents unmoored. American Philosophical Quarterly, 55(2), 113–120. King, P. (2004). Metaphysics. In J. Brower & K. Guilfoy (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Peter Abelard (pp. 65–125). Cambridge University Press. Marenbon, J. (1997). The philosophy of Peter Abelard. Cambridge University Press. Marenbon, J. (2008). Was Abelard a trope theorist? In C.  Erismann & A.  Schneewind (Eds.), Compléments de substance: Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera (pp. 85–101). Vrin. Marenbon, J. (2013). Abelard in four dimensions: A twelfth-century philosopher in his context and ours. University of Notre Dame Press. Martin, C. B. (1980). Substance substantiated. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 58(1), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048408012341001 Martin, C.  J. (1992). The logic of the Nominales, or, the rise and fall of impossible positio. Vivarium, 30(1), 110–126. Martin, C. J. (2003). An amputee is bipedal! The categories and the development of Abaelard’s theory of possibility. In J. Biard & I. Rosier-Catach (Eds.), La tradition médiévale des catégories (XIIe–XVe siècles): Actes du XIIIe Symposium européen de logique et de sémantique médiévales (Avignon, 6–10 juin 2000) (pp. 225–242). Peeters. Martin, C.  J. (2009). Imposition and essence. What’s new in Abelard’s theory of meaning? In T.  Shimizu & C.  Burnett (Eds.), The word in medieval logic, theology and psychology (pp. 183–223). Brepols. Rosier-Catach, I. (2017). Understanding as attending. Semantic, psychology and ontology in Peter Abelard. In J. Pelletier & M. Roques (Eds.), The language of thought in late medieval philosophy: Essays in honor of Claude Panaccio (pp. 247–274). Springer. Simons, P. (1994). Particulars in particular clothing. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54(3), 553–575. Williams, D.  C. (1953). On the elements of being: I. The Review of Metaphysics, 7(1), 3–18. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20123348

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Roxane Noël  is a Gates scholar currently writing her PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of John Marenbon. She specializes in medieval philosophy, with a special focus on the twelfth century. Her M.A. thesis, titled “Understanding universals in Abelard’s Tractatus de intellectibus: The notion of ‘nature’”, was written under the supervision of Jack Zupko, at the University of Alberta, with support from SSHRC and FRQSC.

Chapter 16

Some Further Remarks on Abelard’s Notion of Nature Irene Binini

Abstract  The notion of nature is central not only to Abelard’s theory of cognition and to his treatment of universals, but also to Abelard’s modal logic, to his discussion of future contingents and to his theory of conditionals. In this essay, I emphasize how the notion of nature—despite its pervasiveness in Abelard’s philosophy and despite the attention that has been paid to it—still raises puzzling questions to interpreters. One of these puzzles has to do with Abelard’s idea that different individuals may be “of a same nature (eiusdem naturae),” a claim that according to some is hardly compatible with the nominalist position he endorsed. Another interpretative issue is raised by Abelard’s claims in De Intellectibus that substances have more than one nature, and that we might consider things as being of a different nature depending on which of their properties we pay attention to. Given Abelard’s essentialist framework, his assertions on the multiplicity of natures associable to a single individual may sound perplexing. Other issues that I take into account are Abelard’s attribution of natures to non-existent things such as chimaeras or horned men, and his remarks concerning the accessibility of natures to our knowledge. Keywords  Peter Abelard · De Intellectibus · Nature · Universals · Essentialism

Roxane Noël’s paper “Abelard’s homo intelligitur puzzle: On the relation between universal understandings and a world of singulars” engages with the discussion of a well-known problem connected to Abelard’s logic and ontology—that is, Abelard’s treatment of universal terms and their signification—but addresses it from an original and unusual perspective, by focusing on the theory of understandings that Abelard presents in the De Intellectibus. One of the paper’s main merits is that it focuses on the notion of natura, which is central not only to Abelard’s theory of

I. Binini (*) Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Parma, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_16

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cognition and his theory of universals, as Noël’s article shows, but also to Abelard’s logic. As Noël points out, one area in which Abelard discusses natures is in connection with modalities. On many occasions, Abelard defines possibility in terms of what is not incompatible with the nature of a thing, or with nature in general (non repugnans naturae), or alternatively with what nature allows (natura patitur or permittit).1 Likewise, Abelard describes the potentialities (potentiae naturales or aptitudines) of individual substances as the abilities and dispositions that a substance has by virtue of both its nature and its physical form. The same definition of possibility may also be found in other sources from the early twelfth century, such as Garlandus’ Dialectica, the anonymous commentary on De Interpretatione labeled H92—the latter probably written slightly earlier than Abelard’s Dialectica—and two anonymous treatises on modalities that were written in the same years as Abelard’s logical texts or slightly later, namely, the treatise M33 and the recently edited De Propositionibus Modalibus. The definition also returns in several other commentaries on the Categories and on Boethius’ De Topicis Differentiis, and, as Martin (2016) suggested, might have been a standard characterization in Abelard’s time. Abelard also provides a definition of other modalities based on the notion of nature, saying that “impossible” is what is incompatible with nature, and that “necessary” is what nature requires or demands (quod natura exigit or compellit). Unlike the nature-­ based account of possibility, this definition of necessity is used in the early twelfth century only by Abelard and a few other authors strictly connected to his teaching, such as the authors of the Logica Nostrorum (LNPS), of the Glossae Secundum Vocales (GSV), of the anonymous De Propositionibus Modalibus (DPM), and of the later Summa Dialectice Artis (SDA). Abelard seems therefore to be the first logician to offer all definitions of modal concepts in terms of nature, and to develop an entire modal semantics based on this notion. Apart from his discussion of modalities, another area in which Abelard widely refers to the notion of nature is his theory of topical arguments, presented in the Dialectica. As is known, Abelard divides entailments into perfect and imperfect,

1  Apart from the passages that are quoted in Noël’s article, see also Dial. 196–198 and 200–204. The same idea is rehearsed in Dial. 98.16–18 (“Nullam formam in nomine ‘potentis’ intelligamus, sed id tantum quod naturae non repugnet; in qua quidem significatione nomine ‘possibilis’ in modalibus propositionibus utimur”); Dial. 176.27–31 (“Haec igitur: ‘quidam homo non est homo,’ idest ‘quaedam res quae est animal rationale mortale, non est animal rationale mortale uel animal simpliciter,’ semper falsa est; est enim omnino impossibile quod ipsa dicit nec ullo tempore contingere potest nec eius exemplum natura patitur”); and Dial. 385.3–5 (“Potentiam enim et impotentiam secundum naturam accipimus, ut id tantum quisque possit suscipere quod eius natura permittit, idque non possit quod natura expellit”). For Abelard’s Logica “Ingredientibus,” see, for example, LI 124.33–37 (“Potentia quoque cum dicitur posse inesse alicui, talis est sensus quod eam subiectam habere queat, hoc est naturae eius non repugnat, ut habeat”); LI, De Int. 266.541–545; 408.426–427; 414.568–415.594. 2  H9  =  Orléans, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. 266, pp.  5a–43a; Assisi, Biblioteca Conventuale Francescana, MS. 573, ff. 48rb–67vb; all references are to the Orléans manuscript. 3  M3 = Orléans, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. 266, pp. 252b–257b.

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and says that while those of the first kind—which includes arguments having a syllogistic form—are valid by virtue of their form or construction, those of the second kind––that is, all valid arguments that are not syllogisms—obtain their validity from the nature of things. The idea that non-syllogistic arguments are valid ex natura rerum, ex natura terminorum, or again ex natura speciei ac generis, often returns in Abelard’s treatment of loci. For instance, Abelard states that the validity of the consequentia “if every man is an animal, every man is animate” is granted by the fact that the nature of animality, which includes being animate as one of its substantial forms, does not tolerate that any animal exists without being animate, so that what is said in the consequent is required (exigitur) by what is said in the antecedent. When we affirm that “if something is an animal, it is animate,” we can be sure that the truth of the consequence does not depend on the logical structure of the entailment but on some epistemological grasp we have of what the nature of animal consists in (Dial. 255.1–17). Also, in the case of entailments such as “if something is a man, it is not a stone” or “if there is fatherhood, there is filiation (si paternitas est, filiatio est),” Abelard says that we are certain about their truth by virtue of our discernment of the nature of humans and of fatherhood, and of the knowledge we have concerning the properties required by such natures (Dial. 284.24–31). The use of natura as a foundation for the validity of arguments may also be found in other early twelfth-century sources. Among the contemporaries of Abelard, we also find the idea that certain logical principles—such as the principle stating that of a pair of two contradictory propositions, necessarily either one or the other is true—are valid “ex natura rerum,”4 although it is not clear which are the res that have the relevant nature in this case. Another part of Abelard’s philosophy in which the notion of nature has a predominant role is his discussion of future contingents and of the dilemma presented by Aristotle in the De Interpretatione 9. Central to this discussion is the distinction between the determinate and indeterminate truth value of propositions, which is, in turn, based on the distinction between determinate and indeterminate states of affairs (euentus rerum). Abelard claims that the truth value of a proposition de futuro is determinate if the event to which this proposition refers is cognoscibilis ex natura, that is, if it is accessible to knowledge by virtue of being an expression of some natural law. Propositions such as “Socrates will die” or “a chimaera will not eat,” or again “a chimaera will not be a goat-stag,” are determinately true because the states of affairs to which they refer might be known by us thanks to our previous knowledge of the nature of certain things (LI, De Int. 249.152–157).5 Everything that could be presented to our reason through the perception of the nature of things, Abelard claims, is determinate (LI, De Int. 250.167–168).6 The same idea returns in the Dialectica and in the Hexameron, where Abelard distinguishes between future

4  See, for instance, H9 (p. 18a). See also H11 (= Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, lat. 13368, f. 229va), and the Glossae “Doctrinae Sermonum” c. 9 (GDS 130.731). 5  “Singula quae dicuntur certificari nobis possunt ex natura aliqua rerum iam cognita.” 6  “Quicquid ergo suggeri potest rationi ex aliqua naturae rerum perceptione, determinatum est.”

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events that are contingent and those that are “naturalia,” that is, which are caused by some natural law and that are then knowable (at least in principle) by us. In this context, Abelard is very careful to distinguish what is “knowable” on the basis of nature (cognoscibilis ex natura) and what is actually known (certus). Indeed, he thinks that what constitutes the nature of things is always knowable in principle, but very seldom known by us, and this is in line with what he says elsewhere about the many limits of our epistemological access to natures.7 On the one hand, Abelard assumes that we normally know which substances belong to a certain genus and species, so that we can unproblematically classify things by sorting them into the various natural kinds. This is an assumption underlying Abelard’s philosophy, which Marenbon (1997, p. 117) has labeled strong naturalism. Nevertheless, even though we have the capacity to correctly sort all substances into their genus and species, Abelard thinks that we are not able to say in which respect the members of a certain group are different from the members of another, because we are not always able to specify the essential features constituting their nature.8 A certain “negative knowledge” of natures, so to speak, may be gained through the observation of which properties the members of a certain kind manifest and how they behave: because all individuals of the same species are of the same nature, from what we see actualized in one individual, we infer that certain properties or behavioral patterns are not incompatible with the nature of things of this sort. This inductive process, however, is not a complete or infallible guide to natures, for it does not tell us which are the properties that the nature of a certain substance requires, or which ones are incompatible with it: from the fact that all individuals of a species manifest a certain property, we cannot infer that this property is part of their nature. A typical case to exemplify this is that of propria and inseparable accidents, like the ability to laugh for humans, or the property of being colored that all corporeal things possess: even though every man is able to laugh and every corporeal thing is colored, these properties are not part of the nature of their bearers, as I will show below. Within his discussion on the contingency of events and propositions, Abelard again mentions the nature of things as a cause of the happening of certain events, a cause that may either act by itself, without human intervention, as in the case of the water that turns into ice when it is cold, or may instead act in connection with human actions, as in the case of the breaking of a stick, which is caused partly by the person who breaks it and partly ex natura, namely in conformity with the natural structure that the stick has that makes it fragile (LI, De Int. 256). Given the pervasiveness of natures in Abelard’s logical texts, it is no wonder that this notion has been given considerable attention among scholars of his work. Even so, some elements related to Abelard’s treatment of natures remain puzzling.  See, for example, LI, De Int. 252.211–212 and 254.275–277.  In a famous passage from the Dialectica, Abelard states that it is not the aim of the logician to investigate the nature of things, but that studying natures and their causes is the purpose of physics, or natural philosophy. He does nevertheless recommend to logicians and natural philosophers, who are both interested in natures, albeit for different purposes, to take each other’s achievements into consideration (Dial. 286.31–287.1). 7 8

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Moreover, some passages from the De Intellectibus that Noël considers in her paper raise interesting new questions, which have not been fully explored. In what follows, I summarize some of the main elements of Abelard’s theory of nature and list some of the doubts that are, in my view, still connected to this notion. One first element that clearly emerges from Abelard’s texts is that all individual substances are associable with a certain nature, and by virtue of having such a nature they may be sorted out into natural kinds, so that we could classify them as humans, donkeys, stones, angels, or natural elements such as water, fire, and earth. According to Abelard, such a division is not conventional or mind-dependent, but rather grounded in the nature of things. This position, which Marenbon has called Abelard’s naturalism (1997, pp. 104 and 196), is an underlying and basic principle of Abelard’s ontology. In Abelard’s texts and in other early twelfth-century sources, we encounter mentions not only of the nature of individuals (e.g., natura Socratis) or of natural kinds (e.g., natura hominis, natura animalis), but also of nature in a more general sense, called “natura rerum” or simply “natura.” This term is not clearly defined by authors of that time, but it seems to be taken to refer to the totality of the laws governing the natural world, which God had established with creation and which are exemplified by what the different individual natures of substances require or are (in) compatible with. In this sense, natura is said to be the object of scientia physica, as is said by Abelard (Dial. 286.31–35) and rehearsed in the Logica Nostrorum (LNPS 506.19–20), and concerns the “origin and genesis of all things” (LNPS 514.5–6). A similar idea is also invoked in slightly later sources, such as the De Propositionibus Modalibus, where it is said that by the term natura we intend the first creation of things (Natura autem dicitur prima rerum creatio) (DPM 233.66), or the Summa Dialectice Artis, where nature is said to be the “physica illa quam Deus in re posuit” (SDA 63). As Noël correctly suggests in her article, Abelard generally talks of natures as if they existed always in a given and definite subject. Nevertheless, on some occasions Abelard also associates natures with non-existent things, like chimaeras, horned men, or future days. This is puzzling because, as we will see, since natures are bundles of properties inhering in a substance, it is hard to understand how we can talk about natures whose bearers do not exist. In fact, what Abelard often claims concerning the natures of non-existent things is that we usually understand things of this sort by connecting them to certain properties and a certain nature, thinking of them, for instance, as corporeal, or sensitive, or more generally as res.9 One may, for example, consider a horned man and understand it as having the nature of humanity (TI:M, §95), or consider a centaurus by attributing to it the nature of animality.10 9  See LI, De Int. 29.96–102: “Est autem ratio potentia discernendi, id est attendendi et deliberandi apud se aliquid quasi in aliqua natura uel proprietate consistens, ueluti si quis rem aliquam uel in eo quod est res, uel in eo quod est substantia uel corporea uel sensibilis uel colorata penset, uel quasi in aliqua natura uel proprietate excogitet ipsam, etsi ipsa non sit, sicut hircoceruus uel dies crastina uel lapis risibilis.” 10  See TI:M, §6: “At uero intellectus esse non potest, nisi ex ratione aliquid iuxta aliquam naturam aut proprietatem attendatur, etiam si sit intelligentia cassa. Quippe cum centaurum sibi animus

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Indeed, Abelard thinks that there could be no possible understanding of non-existent things without a certain attended nature being involved. This is not too problematic, however, because it implies no commitment to the existence of the natures of non-things. As was mentioned, Abelard’s natures may be described in terms of bundles of individual properties that inhere in a certain substance and are grounded in this substance’s body. But which properties inhering in an individual substance constitute its nature? As King notes (2004, p. 81), at times Abelard uses the word “nature” loosely to cover more than the individual’s substantial forms, implying that what constitutes the nature of a thing are the properties involved in the material organization of this substance, or in its typical behavioral patterns. At least in his logical texts, however, the examples that Abelard provides indicate that he thinks of natures as being constituted only by the individual generic or specific forms of substances, such as their corporeity, sensitivity, animality, or rationality. That only these substantial properties are included in the nature of an individual is also entailed by what Abelard says about different members of the same species being “of a same nature” (I will return later to this expression and how to interpret it): the fact that two individuals—say, Plato and Socrates—are in some sense the same with respect to nature implies that their natures are constituted by only those properties with respect to which individuals of a certain kind are alike, which would exclude all of their individual accidents. One might wonder whether propria and inseparable accidents should also be included in the nature of a thing, since they too are possessed by all the members of a certain species and are––at least in act––inseparable from their bearers: every man, for instance, seems to be alike with respect to the property of being able to laugh, and it would be impossible for an individual to be a man and not to have this property. Nevertheless, Abelard explicitly excludes this idea in his commentaries on the Isagoge, where he claims that propria are not required (exiguntur) by the nature of the substances that bear them, and that they are in fact separable from their bearers with respect to nature. This point emerges in connection to Porphyry’s idea that accidents such as the ability to laugh, although inseparable in act from their subjects, are still separable in reason from them, in the sense that they could be conceived (possunt subintelligi) as separated from their subjects without the subject’s corruption.11 Abelard states that the notion of “separability in reason” is an ambiguous one, which could be interpreted in two ways. In the first sense, “separable in reason” is what we, as rational human agents, are able to conceive as

confingit tamquam animal partim ex homine partim ex aequo compositum; itaque animalis naturam, ac per hoc corporis siue substantie, attendere eum necesse est. Et cum hominis et equi quasi partes quasdam sibi iunctas consideret, et humani quoque et equini corporis non pretermittit proprietatem.” 11  The relevant passage for this thesis is the incipit of the Isagoge on accidents, where Porphyry claims (in the Latin translation): “Accidens uero est quod adest et abest praeter subiecti corruptionem. Diuiditur autem in duo, in separabile et in inseparabile; namque dormire est separabile accidens, nigrum uero esse inseparabiliter coruo et Aethiopi accidit (potest autem subintellegi et coruus albus et Aethiops amittens colorem praeter subiecti corruptionem).”

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separated. This is what Abelard calls separability in reason quantum ad discretionem hominum. This is not the sense in which propria are separable, and Abelard denies that we could in fact conceive of, or imagine, a man who is unable to laugh, or that in general we could conceive of any substance as being without its inseparable accidents. This is because our mental activity is very much influenced by our experiences—as Abelard often repeats elsewhere, particularly in the De Intellectibus—so that our imagination is limited and governed by what we have perceived as happening in act. This is why, Abelard continues, Boethius argues against Porphyry in the De Diuisione that propria, like the ability to laugh or to do geometry, cannot be separated in reason from their bearers, because he means the separability in mind with respect to our own ability to discern things. However, there is another sense of “separability in reason” that has nothing to do with our mental capacities, but which concerns the natures of things: a property is separable in reason if it is not part of the nature of a thing. This is what Abelard calls separability quantum ad naturam rei. According to this sense, propria are separable from the substances that bear them, because the nature of these substances would permit them to be without their propria. The nature of humans, for instance, would allow that they are without the ability to laugh, for this ability does not constitute the human substantia as rationality or mortality do (LI 91.1–3).12 What constitutes a thing’s nature (which Abelard at times also calls the substantia or constitutio of the thing) are then only the essential properties of this thing, namely, its substantial forms or differentiae. Socrates’ nature, for instance, is constituted by the individual forms of animality, mortality, and rationality that inhere in Socrates’ substantia, and by many other differentiae that belong to him but of which we are not aware. Whereas the accidental properties are only “externally” related to their bearer and can be separated from it (if not in act, at least in reason, as in the case of propria), the various substantial properties that constitute the nature of a thing are part of this thing’s “essence” or “internal structure,” as Martin has characterized it (1992, p. 112). Given this essentialist framework, we may be tempted to define Abelard’s natures in modal terms, saying that the nature of an individual includes all the properties that inhere necessarily in it, and without which this individual could not persist. However, this characterization would introduce a circularity in Abelard’s theory, because, as was said above, Abelard usually defines necessity in terms of nature, saying that what is necessary is whatever nature requires or demands. It seems therefore that, according to Abelard, the notion of nature is conceptually anterior to that of necessity and to other modal notions. With respect to this point, I disagree with Noël’s reconstruction of Abelard’s natures on the basis of

 “Bene natura hominis pateretur ipsum esse sine risibilitate, quippe ea substantiam eius non constituit sicut rationalitas et mortalitas nec per eam natura hominem facit sicut per illas.” A thesis similar to the one presented by Abelard in the commentary on Porphyry is repeated in the Theologia Summi Boni, where Abelard claims that even if propria are actually inseparable from substances, they are posterior to these substance’s generic and specific forms with respect to nature, and they do not constitute nature in the way that substantial forms or differentiae do. See TSB 2.37–38.

12

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nuclear trope theory, for in that theory the notion of the “foundational system” (which Noël associates with that of the essence or nature) is spelled out in modal terms. An alternative characterization of natures may be given in terms of the definition of a substance, saying that the properties required by a substance’s nature are those that are part of the definition of this substance. As Noël points out, one aspect of Abelard’s theory of nature, on which there has been some debate, is his thesis according to which all members of the same species are “of a same nature (eiusdem naturae).”13 This expression is used insistently by Abelard in the Dialectica (e.g. Dial. 188.14; 194.5; 211.26–27; 228.3; 385.6; 426.5; 582.19), although it has no parallel in the Logica Ingredientibus. Abelard’s use of the term “eadem” (“the same”) in connection to the nature of multiple things has led some commentators to wonder whether Abelard, by admitting some sort of sameness between the natures of different things, introduces a universal into his ontology, therefore falling into an inconsistency with his nominalism.14 On the one hand, Abelard is clear—the passages that Noël quotes from the De Intellectibus are limpid on this—that natures are nothing other than the individual substances with which they are associated, and that all these substances are particular and discrete from all others. Therefore, the natures of two different substances, say Socrates and Plato, cannot be essentially or numerically the same, for Socrates and Plato are two separate things, numerically different from one another. On the other hand, the problem of how different natures can be “the same” remains, since Abelard, at least in the Dialectica, leaves unexplained which sort of sameness he has in mind when using the expression “eadem natura.” Some clarification on what Abelard means by this expression is offered in two of his theological writings, the Theologia Summi Boni and the Theologia Christiana, where the philosopher again advances the idea of different things being eiusdem naturae and connects it with his theory on the many senses of sameness and difference. In both works, Abelard is engaged in explaining how we may say that the three persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit—are in some sense the same while nevertheless being different from one another. To do so, he construes an analogy through the case of two members of the same species, Socrates and Plato, who are also said to be simultaneously the same and different. The two individual men are said to be different personally (alius personaliter) or numerically (diuersus numero) in the sense that their essentia is different and discrete (hoc est ex discretione propriae essentiae ab ipso alius; hoc est ita ab eo in propria essentia discretus ut hic non sit ille). However, the two are not different substantially (substantialiter) because they are of the same nature (eiusdem naturae), which means that they are not different with respect to any of their substantial properties (nulla substantiali

 Another similar expression used by Abelard is that members of the same species convene and “are united into the same nature” (secundum eamdem naturam uniuntur). See Dial. 188.14. 14  Of this opinion are, for instance, Spade (1980) and Panaccio (2009). On whether natures are compatible with Abelard’s nominalism and the different opinions of recent commentators on this matter, see Marenbon (2015, p. 44 ff.). 13

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differentia disiuncti sunt) or with respect to their species.15 Being the same in nature is then associated by Abelard with the idea of being the same substantialiter, which seems simply to mean that two individuals are not distinct by any of their differentiae, that is, their essential properties (“nulla substantiali differentia disiuncti sunt”). One might argue that there is still something unsatisfactory in Abelard’s explanation: What does it mean to have “the same differentiae,” if all forms are for him individual and discrete from one another? Is there another universal involved in this analysis, which seems to be based on the idea of type-differentiae? Unfortunately, Abelard leaves these questions unanswered. A final puzzling aspect concerning Abelard’s natures is raised by a number of passages from the De Intellectibus—some of which are quoted in Noël’s paper— where Abelard claims that substances have multiple natures, and that we might consider things as having a different nature depending on which of their properties we pay attention to. That there is more than one nature associable with each individual is remarked upon by Abelard on at least three occasions in the De Intellectibus. He first says that the intellect often understands a certain thing as being otherwise than it actually subsists, since it pays attention only to “some of its natures and properties,” and not to all of them (TI:M, §74).16 Continuing along the same line of thought, he then observes that when we consider a certain corporeal thing, we may consider  See TC 3.71–72: “Non est itaque Pater aliud quam Filius uel Spiritus Sanctus, aut Filius quam Spiritus Sanctus, nec etiam in numero diuersus. Non est, inquam, aliud in natura, cum unaquaeque trium personarum sit eadem penitus diuina substantia. Sed alius est in persona alter ab altero, id est in proprietate sua diuersus ab illo, cum hic non sit hic qui ille sed hoc ipsum quod ille; nec alter alterius proprietatem communicet, ut supra meminimus. Alioquin personas sibi permiscendo confunderemus. Sed nec Socrates cum sit a Platone numero diuersus hoc est ex discretione propriae essentiae ab ipso alius, ullo modo ideo ab ipso aliud dicitur, hoc est substantialiter differens, cum ambo sint eiusdem naturae secundum eiusdem speciei conuenientiam, in eo scilicet quod uterque ipsorum homo est; atque ideo nulla substantiali differentia disiuncti sunt, ut hic aliud sit quam ille ex diuersae speciei substantia, sed alius, ut dictum est, in persona, ex discretione scilicet propriae substantiae. Multo minus ergo aliqua trium personarum quae in Deo sunt dicenda est aliud ab alia, quarum unica est penitus substantia singularis, nullam partium aut formarum diuersitatem recipiens. Quippe quod partibus constat, ipsis partibus naturaliter posterius est ex quibus constituitur, et ad esse perducitur et suum esse contrahit.” See also TC 2.32: “Nam et Socrates alius est personaliter a Platone, hoc est ita ab eo in propria essentia discretus ut hic non sit ille; nec tamen aliud est ab eo, hoc est substantialiter differens, cum ambo sint penitus eiusdem naturae secundum eiusdem speciei conuenientiam, in eo scilicet quod uterque ipsorum homo est; atque ideo nulla substantiali differentia disiuncti sunt ut hic aliud sit quam ille ex diuersae speciei substantia, sed alius, ut dictum est, in persona, ex discretione scilicet proprie substantiae. Multo minus ergo aliqua trium personarum quae in deo sunt dicenda est aliud ab alia, quarum unica est penitus substantia singularis, nullam partium aut formarum diuersitatem recipiens. Quippe quod partibus constat, ut diximus, ipsis partibus naturaliter posterius est.” 16  “Uterque autem intellectus, tam abstrahens scilicet quam substrahens, aliter quam res se habet concipere uidetur, cum uidelicet utroque res coniunctas diuisim intelligo, que diuisim non subsistunt; modo uidelicet solam materiam per se, modo solam attendendo formam; praeterea nemo, cum aliquam rem attendit, eam excogitare sufficit secundum omnes naturas eius aut proprietates sed secundum aliquas tantum. Cum itaque rem quamlibet secundum aliquas tantum naturas eius uel proprietates attendimus, ipsa autem res non secundum eas tantum quas consideramus sese habeat profecto aliter quam ipsa sit eam consideramus” (my emphasis). 15

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it in its pure and simple bodily nature; in other words, we consider it as “this body (hoc corpus),” discarding the other “innumerable natures and properties” to which it is subject, being not only a body but also a man, a white thing, a hot thing, and so on (TI:M, §75).17 At the end of the same paragraph, Abelard again repeats that, since no res exists as a pure body, we understand it otherwise than it subsists when, with our intellect, we pay attention only to its corporeal nature, discarding all its other “innumerable natures or properties.”18 Because the term “naturae” always comes in a pair with “proprietates,”19 we do not know whether the adjective “all” and “innumerable” that Abelard uses refers to both terms or only to the term “properties.” However, what is clear is that Abelard uses the term “nature” in the plural, and therefore he is certainly claiming that the natures associable with each individual are (at least) more than one. A similar point on the multiplicity of natures is also made by Abelard in his commentary on the De Interpretatione contained in the Logica “Ingredientibus” (LI, De Int.  36.259–262),20 where he claims that the intellect always considers things by focusing on some of their natures, e.g. by attending to a certain thing either generally as a res or as an existent (ens), or as a substance, or as a body, or as a white thing, or as Socrates. Given the aforementioned interpretation of Abelard’s natures as the essences of individual substances, these remarks on the multiplicity of natures may seem puzzling. Is not essentialism based on the very idea that the relation between a certain individual and its own essence is univocal? How can there be more than one essence, or more than one definition, for each substance, and how can these essences depend on the way in which a certain rational agent attends to this substance?

 “Verbi gratia hoc corpus et corpus est, et homo, et calens, et candidum, et innumeris aliis naturis uel proprietatibus subiectum; et aliquando tamen ipsum in eo tantum quod corpus est attendo, non in eo quod homo est, uel quod calet, uel quod albet; et sic in singulis rebus quas intellectus noster percipit, aliquam tantum que illis rebus insunt, non omnia, attendit” (my emphasis). 18  “Praeterea cum quislibet corpoream naturam simpliciter ac pure concipit, in eo scilicet tantum attendens quod est corporea, id est corpus, aut quamlibet naturam ut uniuersalem capit, hoc est indifferenter absque ulla scilicet personali discretione eam attendit, profecto aliter eam intelligit quam subsistat. Nusquam enim ita pure subsistit sicut pure concipitur; sed ubicumque sit innumeras, ut dictum est, aut naturas aut proprietates habet quae minime attenduntur; et nulla est natura quae indifferenter subsistat, sed quaelibet res, ubicumque est, personaliter discreta est atque una numero reperitur” (my emphasis). 19  The same association between natures and properties may also be found in other Abelardian texts, such as the commentary on the De Interpretatione contained in the Logica Ingredientibus (LI, De Int. 29.100–101). 20  “Vbi uero attendit naturam aliquam rei uel in eo quod res est uel ens uel substantia uel corpus uel alba uel Socrates, intellectus dicitur, cum quidem de confusione, quae imaginationis erat, ad intellectum per rationem ducitur.” See also LI, De Int. 29.96–102 on the same idea: “Est autem ratio potentia discernendi, id est attendendi et deliberandi apud se aliquid quasi in aliqua natura uel proprietate consistens, ueluti si quis rem aliquam uel in eo quod est res, uel in eo quod est substantia uel corporea uel sensibilis uel colorata penset, uel quasi in aliqua natura uel proprietate excogitet ipsam, etsi ipsa non sit, sicut hircoceruus uel dies crastina uel lapis risibilis.” 17

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To understand Abelard’s remarks in the De Intellectibus it might be helpful to view them in relation to other passages from his works where he advances a similar idea. In the part of the Dialectica dedicated to modalities, Abelard engages in a long discussion—which probably reflects an ongoing debate among scholars of the time (cf. Cameron 2015)—on the truth value of the modal proposition “it is possible for a man to be dead” (Possibile est hominem mortuum esse), a proposition that Abelard unexpectedly states to be true de rebus, in opposition to his Master, who, understanding it de sensu, considers it false (Dial. 196.29–197.31). I say “unexpectedly” because, as was said above, according to Abelard’s semantics, a proposition about possibility is true when what is said by the predicate is not repugnant to the nature of the subject, while in fact being dead is repugnant to the nature of men. Abelard clarifies his position by explaining that the proposition’s truth value depends on the way in which we attend to what is signified by the term “man,” and on whether we decide to consider it in its nature of human or in its bodily nature. In the first case, the proposition is false, for the nature of men is repugnant to being dead; in the second case, the proposition is true, for the nature of bodies is compatible with being dead. Although this human and this body that is now this human are the same thing, Abelard claims, “it is one thing to consider in this thing the simple nature it has as a body, and another to consider in the same subject its property of human” (Dial. 197.28–30).21 On the background of Abelard’s reasoning in this passage, we again find his theory of the many senses of sameness and difference, on which he often relies to unravel philosophical problems. Abelard admits that this man and this body that is actually a man, despite essentially being the same, may nevertheless be considered two different things, having different properties and a different nature, and consequently different possibilities or necessities. Depending on the way we attend to the thing referred to by the term “this man,” and on which of its natures we focus on, we may consider it as a human or as a body, and this affects the truth value of a proposition in which the term is included. When he wants to make clear that he is speaking of the corporeal substance that is human, and not of the man, rather than simply saying “this man,” Abelard uses expressions such as “that which is human (id quod est homo)” or “this substance that is a man (haec substantia quae homo est).” The use of these terminological devices is interesting because, as Wilks (1998) has noticed, Abelard uses the same expressions in his theological writings when dealing with cases of things being essentially the same while having different properties, such as the case of the wax and the wax image, or the three persons of the Trinity. We might then suppose that, when he wrote the Dialectica, Abelard had already envisaged the theory on sameness and difference that he would later apply in his theological writings, in at least some of its details. To make sense of the passages from the De Intellectibus in which Abelard speaks of the many natures of the same thing, we may then apply the same strategy that he

 “Aliud est enim corporis simplicem attendere in eo naturam, aliud hominis proprietatem in eodem considerare.”

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uses in the Dialectica. Things are associated with many natures in the sense that every substance, despite being essentially and numerically one thing, can nevertheless be considered as different items, for instance, when the same human is taken as an individual man (Socrates) or as the individual body that is now this man. Which properties are essential or accidental to this substance depend on which of these items we are taking into consideration: whereas having animality and rationality is necessary for being Socrates (and for his persistence), the individual body that is now Socrates could remain the same (synchronically, through time, or counterfactually), even if these forms are separated from it.22 Abelard’s remarks on the multiplicity of the natures that can be associated with an individual thing add a further element of sophistication to his theory on the metaphysics of substances and their relation to forms, a theory whose richness is only partly captured by the recent reconstructions of Abelard’s ontology in terms of contemporary tropes.

References Manuscripts Assisi, Biblioteca Conventuale Francescana, MS. 573. Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 266. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Lat. MS. 13368.

Primary Sources Abelard, P. (1919–1927). Logica “ingredientibus” (B. Geyer, Ed.). In Peter Abaelards philosophische Schriften. I: Die Logica “Ingredientibus”. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 21/1–3. Aschendorff. [= LI]. Abelard, P. (1933). Logica “nostrorum petitioni sociorum” (B. Geyer, Ed.). In Peter Abaelards philosophische Schriften. II: Die Logica “Nostrorum petitioni sociorum” (pp. 505–588). Beiträge zur Gescahichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 21/4. Aschendorff. [= LNPS]. Abelard, P. (1969). Theologia christiana (E. M. Buytaert, Ed.). In Opera theologica II. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 12. Brepols. [= TC]. Abelard, P. (1970). Dialectica (L. M. de Rijk, Ed.). In Petrus Abaelardus: Dialectica (2nd ed.). Van Gorcum. [= Dial.]. Abelard, P. (1987). Theologia “summi boni” (E. M. Buytaert & C. J. Mews, Eds.). In Opera theologica III. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 13. Brepols. [= TSB]. Abelard, P. (1994). Des intellections (P. Morin, Ed. & Trans.). Vrin. [= TI:M]. Abelard, P. (2010). Glossae super Peri hermeneias (K.  Jacobi & C.  Strub., Eds.). Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 206. Brepols. [= LI, De Int.]. Anonymous. (1933). Glossae “secundum vocales” (C. Ottaviano, Ed.). In Testi medioevali inediti (pp. 106–207). Leo S. Olschki. [= GSV].

22

 I advance this interpretation in more detail in Binini (2019).

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Anonymous. (2016a). Glossae doctrine sermorum (P. King, Ed.). Brepols. [= GDS]. Anonymous. (2016b). De propositionibus modalibus (K.  Jacobi & C.  Strub, Eds.). Brepols. [= DPM]. Garlandus Compotista. (1959). Dialectica (L. M. de Rijk, Ed.). Van Gorcum. Guillelmus episcopus Lucanus. (1975). Summa dialectice artis (L. Pozzi, Ed.). Liviana Editrice. [= SDA].

Secondary Sources Binini, I. (2019). The role of “differentiae” in Abelard’s arguments for the identity and persistence of substances. In F. Amerini, I. Binini, & M. Mugnai (Eds.), Mereology in medieval logic and metaphysics. Edizioni della Normale. Cameron, M. (2015). The logic of dead humans: Abelard and the transformation of the Porphyrian tree. Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, 3, 32–62. King, P. (2004). Metaphysics. In J. Brower & K. Guilfoy (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Peter Abelard (pp. 65–125). Cambridge University Press. Marenbon, J. (1997). The philosophy of Peter Abelard. Cambridge University Press. Marenbon, J. (2008). Was Abelard a trope theorist? In C.  Erismann & A.  Schneewind (Eds.), Compléments de substance: Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera (pp. 85–101). Vrin. Marenbon, J. (2015). Abelard’s theory of universals. In G. Guigon & G. Rodriguez-Pereyra (Eds.), Nominalism about properties: New essays (pp. 38–62). Routledge. Martin, C.  J. (1992). The logic of the Nominales, or, the rise and fall of impossible positio. Vivarium, 30(1), 110–126. Martin, C.  J. (2016). Modality without the Prior Analytics: Early twelfth century accounts of modal propositions. In M.  Creswell, E.  Mares, & A.  Rini (Eds.), Logical modalities from Aristotle to Carnap (pp. 113–132). Cambridge University Press. Noël, R. (2021). Abelard’s homo intelligitur puzzle: On the relation between universal understandings and a world of singulars. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Panaccio, C. (2009). Medieval metaphysics I: The problem of universals. In R.  L. Poidevin, P. Simons, A. McGonigal, & R. P. Cameron (Eds.), The Routledge companion to metaphysics (pp. 48–57). Routledge. Spade, P.  V. (1980). Review of the book Abailard on universals by M.  Tweedale. Noûs, 14(3), 479–483. Wilks, I. (1998). Peter Abelard and the metaphysics of essential predication. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 36(3), 365–385. Irene Binini  is a researcher in the history of medieval philosophy at the University of Parma. Her work focuses on medieval modal logic and theories of modalities. She obtained her PhD in 2017 from the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy) with a dissertation on Peter Abelard’s theory of possibility and necessity. She then carried out her postdoctoral research as a DAAD P.R.I.M.E. fellow at the University of Freiburg, and as a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. In 2019 she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship for a project on the theories of modalities of the Oxford Calculators. The MSCA-GF project is currently being carried out at the University of Parma in partnership with the University of Toronto. More details on her research and interests may be found on her website: https://irenebinini.com/.

Part VIII

Robert Kilwardby on Bodily Pain

Chapter 17

Does Bodily Pain Have an Intentional Character? Robert Kilwardby’s Answer Elena Băltuță

Abstract The main claim I defend in this paper is that Robert Kilwardby, a thirteenth-­century Dominican philosopher, construed bodily pain as a fully-fledged intentional state of the sensory soul. To prove this, I first examine Kilwarby’s account of how pain comes to be and how the sensory soul experiences it. I then show that pain cannot be reduced to a feeling the sensory soul experiences for the simple reason that pain has representational content, and is thus also directed at something. Keywords  Robert Kilwardby · Pain · Intentionality · Perception · Attention · Sensation · Direction toward · Epistemology

17.1  Introductory Remarks Suppose I wake up in the middle of the night with a sensation of thirst. I get out of bed and, on my way to the kitchen, I stub my little toe on the doorjamb. What I then experience is sharp pain. But is this conscious state of mind also intentional—that is, is it directed at something? This issue is still debated in the philosophical literature today. Two main competing camps can be distinguished in their attempt to answer this question. According to the first camp, pain is not intentional. Pain is a mere sensation, experienced by a subject, but not directed at anything. Thus, in this scenario, after stubbing my toe on the hard corner of the doorjamb, I only feel pain. The state I am suddenly in does not, in addition to the feeling of pain, have any representational content directed towards anything.1 According to the second camp, pain is intentional. Pain is both a sensation experienced by a subject, and it is directed at something. Thus, after my midnight encounter with the doorjamb, I feel

 See, for example, Searle (1992, p. 84) and McGinn (1996, pp. 8–9).

1

E. Băltuță (*) Independent Scholar, Berlin, Germany © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_17

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pain, and the state I am in has some representational content, which directs it at something. It represents, say, my little toe as being injured.2 It is not my aim here to tackle the ongoing contemporary debate around pain and intentionality, but rather to analyse whether pain was conceived of as intentional in the thirteenth century by philosophers and theologians working in the Latin tradition. I take this to be an important preliminary step, if we hope to bring contemporary and medieval views on intentionality and pain into dialogue. Importing the question about the intentionality of pain from contemporary philosophy can aid in bringing to light unnoticed or insufficiently investigated features of the medieval treatment of intentionality, even if there is no one-to-one correspondence between the contemporary and thirteenth century conceptions of intentionality. Generally speaking, the two historical periods share enough that they are able to engage in dialogue, but it is often difficult to know the limits of such engagement. In other words, it is not always clear if we are truly engaged in a dialogue with medieval philosophers or if we are just projecting our contemporary interpretations onto their medieval theories. To avoid that sort of projection, one needs to become well acquainted with both the details of the conceptions defended in medieval philosophy and the corresponding medieval framework. It is thus my contention that a proper dialogue about the intentionality of pain becomes possible, reasonable, and truly fruitful only after the medieval position on the topic has been accurately reconstructed. It is to this preliminary task that I aim to contribute in this paper. I should begin with some brief details about how thirteenth-century Latin philosophers conceived of the body, the soul, and the relation between them. One might think that these details should prove sufficient for establishing the requisite medieval framework for defining pain and for deciding whether they conceived of it as intentional or not. But such expectations would be naïve at best. In the thirteenth century, with the rediscovery of the Aristotelian corpus and the addition of Arabic commentaries on that corpus, Latin philosophers began discussing in new and various terms the relation between the body and the soul. Those who, for instance, defended the substantial unity of the soul and the body, as the Thomists did, treated pain and intentionality differently from those who, under the influence of Augustine, conceived of the body as a separate substance naturally united with the soul, whether the soul in question was only sensory or both sensory and intellective. What I seek to highlight with these brief remarks is that there is not a single, but rather many positions on the intentionality of pain, in part because the background framework for thinking about these sorts of issues was not always shared. It would be unreasonable, then, to aim to contribute a comprehensive account of how a wide range of medieval thinkers construed the nature of pain. A choice must therefore be made.

 See, for example, Tye (1995, pp. 111–116).

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I choose to contribute to this wider project by reconstructing Robert Kilwardby’s3 position on the intentionality of pain.4 His position is worth investigating not only because it has not yet received the scholarly attention it deserves, but also because Kilwardby tries to balance the old and the new—the Augustinian classical authority and the newly recovered Aristotelian framework.5 Despite advocating for the plurality of substantial forms in the human being, Kilwardby tries to incorporate Aristotelian causal and cognitive mechanisms in the way he accounts for the body, its workings, and its relation to the sensory soul.6 My contribution will consist in supporting the claim that, for Kilwardby, pain is an intentional state of the soul. Pain has a representational content and is thus directed at something. To defend this claim, I will follow a two-step approach. First, I will consider how, according to Kilwardby, pain comes to be and how the sensory soul experiences pain. Second, I will show that, from Kilwardby’s point of view, pain cannot be construed as a mere sensation, and that it must be an intentional state of the soul.

17.2  Genealogy and Experience of Pain Before taking a closer look at Kilwardby’s description of how pain comes to be, I wish to address what can be seen as his definition of pain. Following in the footsteps of Augustine, Kilwardby states that pain is the discomfort of the soul arising from the flesh.7 These are his words: When an affection occurs in the body, the [sensory] soul acts sometimes with ease, because it agrees with the affection [of the body], and sometimes with difficulty, because it disagrees with the affection [of the body]. This perceived or apprehended difficulty is called “travail” or “pain.” […] And this can be understood as follows: The instrument or the sensitive body is hurt proportionally with the force [with which] the sensible affects it. But when [the instrument or the sensitive body] is injured, it is less apt to receive the movement of the [sensory] soul, it is ruled by [the sensory soul] to a lesser degree, and therefore the [sensitive] soul’s action of moving the injured [part of the instrument or of the sensitive body] is performed with more difficulty; and from this difficulty the disturbance arises. (Kilwardby, DSF §§120–121; trans. 1993, p. 99, modified)8 3  For those interested in the life and works of Robert Kilwardby, see Thomson (1938), Silva (2012, 2016), and Broadie’s (1987) introduction to Kilwardby’s On Time and Imagination. 4  For treatments of pain in the Middle Ages, see Mowbray (2009), Knuuttila (2010), and Yrjönsuuri (2008). 5  For literature on Kilwardby’s epistemology, see Sirridge (2007), Silva (2008), Silva & Toivanen (2010), Silva (2013), Băltuță (2019, 2020). 6  For Kilwardby’s theory of the soul, see especially Silva (2012, part one). 7  See Kilwardby, Quaestiones in librum secundum Sententiarum, q. 94, §§31–38, p. 256; De spiritu fantastico, §§120–121, pp. 81–82, henceforth DSF. I use A. Broadie’s 1993 English translation of DSF throughout this paper. 8  “Anima enim aliquando occurrit passionibus corporis facili actione propter conuenientiam, aliquando diffícili propter inconuenientiam. Et hec difficultas percepta siue apprehensa uocatur ‘labor’ et ‘dolor’. […] Et hec potes faciliter intelligere sic: Instrumentum uel corpus sensitiuum ab

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The idea here is that the sensory soul, which acts in and through the body, is what is capable of experiencing pain. When the body is not disturbed by disproportionate stimuli, the soul performs its actions with ease. However, when the body is affected by disproportionate stimuli and is thus damaged, the sensory soul has to work harder to perform its actions. In other words, when the instrument, which is the body, is damaged by external stimuli, the mover of the instrument, which is the sensory soul, moves the body with more difficulty. This is why Kilwardby understands pain as involving the more difficult movement of the sensory soul in the body.9 An analogy for this could be the following. As a right-handed person who takes a lot of hand-­ written notes, I do not usually encounter any difficulty in engaging in such an activity with my right hand. However, if I sprain my right wrist, I—which here stands for the sensory soul—have to invest considerably more effort to be able to write. It is this effort that Kilwardby calls pain. Understanding what pain is seems to allow us to take a glimpse at how it comes to be. It appears that pain is triggered by the damage disproportionate external stimuli produce in the body. Nevertheless, it would be better not to follow this trail of thought any further, because it may be misleading. For Kilwardby, one crucial aspect of pain is that it cannot be triggered by the external stimuli, no matter how disproportionate, and this will become clearer as I delve deeper into how he understands the relation between the body and the sensory soul in the context of sensing more generally. Let us see how Kilwardby describes the acts of the sensory soul when the body is affected by external stimuli: There are, indeed, two things in sensing: The more attentive operation of the [sensory] soul in the affected body, and the perception of this action. Therefore, while attending to the affected body in order to move it in accordance with the exigency of its affection, the [sensory] soul assimilates itself to the affection inasmuch as [the affection] has affected [the body]. But such assimilation is nothing but the construction of an image of the sensitive thing which affects the organ as it appears in [the sensory soul] itself, because this affection of the organ by the sensible object is the affection of which we spoke. And this is nothing but the impression made in the organ itself by the likeness of the object. Because [the sensory] soul turns its glance towards itself when informed by the image, the more attentive action by which the [sensory] soul is informed does not remain unnoticed by the [sensory] soul. And this is to sense in itself the image constructed in itself by acting more attentively upon the body. […] And therefore [the sensory soul] senses the sensible object outside by means of the image it has constructed in itself. (Kilwardby, DSF §103; trans. 1993, pp. 94–95, modified)10

excellentia uehementi sensibilis inproporcionalis leditur. Lesum autem, minus aptum est ad motum anime suscipiendum et minus est ab ea. regibile, et ideo difficiliori actione mouet illud anima, et ex hac difficultate molestatur.” 9  Augustine, one of Kilwardby’s go-to sources, understands pain in similar terms. See, for example, Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.23; De civitate dei 19.12; De natura boni 20. 10  “Duo enim sunt in sentiendo, scilicet attencior operacio spiritus in corpore passo et huius actionis percepcio. Dum ergo attendit corpori passo ut illud moueat secundum exigenciam sue passionis, assimilat se passo secundum quod passum est. Assimilacio autem talis non est aliud quam formacio ymaginis rei sensibilis qua inuenit affectum suum organum in seipso, quia ipsa affectio organi ab obiecto sensibili est passio de qua loquimur. Et hec non est nisi impressio similitudinis obiecti

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Kilwardby’s thought in this passage is dense and requires some unpacking. The way I understand it, “the two things in sensing” ultimately amount to four acts performed by the sensory soul: 1 . The sensory soul pays attention to its instrument, the body; 2. When the body is affected by an external thing, the soul 2 .1 focuses its attention on the affected part of the body, and 2.2 constructs an image of the affection; 3. Then, the soul reflects on the image it has constructed and becomes aware of itself as having constructed the image; 4. Through the image on which it reflects, the soul extends its attention to the external object that caused the affection of the body and cognizes it. Simply by listing these four acts, however, we are still far from understanding the relationship between the body and the sensory soul in the context of sensing. Each of the four acts performed by the soul is thus in need of further specification. It is in digging deeper to provide these specifications that I will be able to show how pain comes to be and to account for how the sensory soul is experiencing pain, in Kilwardby’s account. Even before any external thing affects our bodies, the sensory soul is oriented towards the body and pays attention to it. This first and fundamental act of the sensory soul in its relation to the body is necessary for the conservation and organization of the body: […] note that the sensory soul, because it is a form, works and acts continuously by flowing into the body, which is matter in relation to it, and holds the body together, unites it, preserves it, and organizes it in accordance with the power which was granted to it for this purpose. And because it is a form which is sensitive life, it is responsible for the inflowing of vital inspiration, of the power of growth, sensation, preservation, health, and the natural organization, so far as that is granted to it. And just as it acts continuously by flowing into the body, so it acts in different ways in respect of different affections or passions of the body. For just as the action of the mind and its in-flowing is necessary for the health and organization of the body, so also the continuity of the soul’s action is necessary for the continuity of the health of the body, and a different mode of action of the soul is necessary for the different passions and affections of the body. (Kilwardby, DSF §99, trans. 1993, pp. 92–93, modified)11

in ipso organo facta. Quia uero spiritus aciem conuertit ad se sic ymagine informatum, ideo non latet eum attentior actio per quam formatus est. Et hoc est sentire in se ymaginem quam in se formavit attencius in corpus operando. […] Et sic sentit sensibile forinsecum per ymaginem quam in se formauit.” 11  “[…] nota quod spiritus sensitiuus, eo quod forma est, continue operatur et agit influendo in corpus quod est ei materia, et hoc continendo, uniendo, saluando et ordinando illud secundum posse sibi ad hoc datum. Et quia est forma que est uita sensitiua, agit influentiam uitalis inspiracionis, uegetacionis et sensificacionis et conseruacionis et salutis et naturalis ordinacionis quan tum sibi datur. Et sicut continue operatur sic innuendo corpori, sic diuersimode operatur secundum diuersas affectiones uel passiones corporis. Sicut enim saluti et conseruacioni et ordinacioni cor-

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The continuity of this act stems from the specific relation of the sensory soul to the body, which is that of a form to its matter. Let us consider another example of such a relation. Imagine a tree which is composed of form and matter. The form of the tree—that which makes the tree be what it is (that is, a tree, and not something else)—never refrains from informing the matter of the tree. The moment it would fail to fulfil this role, the tree would just cease to be what it is. The tree, as a substance, would simply be corrupted. The same applies to the sensory soul’s relation to the body. By paying attention to the body continuously, the soul organizes it and preserves its integrity. Thus, the soul notices any affection the body might undergo. When this happens, the soul performs its second act. It focuses on the affected body part and constructs an image of the affection. This act of image construction is teleologically motivated: the sensory soul pays attention to the body, whether in its first act or in this second act, because it was created in such a way as to tend towards the protection of the body. After all, the body is the instrument through which the sensory soul knows and attains happiness in this life: All this stems from the natural appetite and attention of the [sensory] soul by which it takes care of the well-being, safety, and preservation of the body. And this appetite to see to the health of the body, and the attention or solicitude regarding the body, are endowments of the [sensory] soul, because the body is destructible and can be injured, and because it is a pleasant and useful instrument of the sensory soul for acquiring knowledge of many things. For, because of this, as if by a sort of natural foresight and prudence, the [sensory] soul is continually solicitous about the body, so that the [sensory] soul goes forward to meet the passions or affections, of whatever kind or however great, of the body whether they come from without or within, removing, if it can, or at any rate weakening the severity of, those that displease it, and accepting those that please it. (Kilwardby, DSF §101; trans. 1993, p. 93, modified)12

Kilwardby makes several important points in this passage concerning the sensory soul’s way of relating to the body. First, as I have already mentioned, the soul performs its acts naturally, guided by its natural attention and appetite to take care of the body’s well-being. Second, the soul evaluates, based on its natural disposition, the effects of the affections the body happens to undergo. Third, and if all goes well, the soul enjoys the positive effects of the affections. This is how pleasure comes to be. Fourth, the soul tries to adjust and compensate the negative effects of the affections. This is how pain comes to be. Let us consider the case of the sensory soul

poris necessaria est actio anime et influencia eius, sic continuitati salutis, continuitas actionis, et diuersis passionibus et affeccionibus corporis, diuersus modus in actione anime.” 12  “Totum autem hoc prouenit ex appetitu et attencione naturali ipsius spiritus quibus curat de salute et incolumitate et conseruacione corporis. Et hic appetitus saluandi corpus et attencio siue sollicitudo circa hoc spiritui inditi sunt, pro eo quod corpus coruptibile est et lesibile, et pro eo quod est delectabile et utile instrumentum ipsius spiritus ad multorum noticiam optinendam et ad comodum placitum de multis consequendum. Ex hoc enim quasi quadam naturali prouidentia siue prudentia iugiter sollicitus est spiritus de corpore, vt qualibuscumque uel quantiscumque passionibus siue affeccionibus corporis ab extra uel ab intra prouenientibus | occurrat, displicentes, si potest, remouens uel saltem mitigans, placentes acceptans.”

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presiding over the body and, in particular, the organ of sight. If we look at the things in a room, the visual species of things affect the eye within normal parameters. But, if we look at the sun, the species of light affecting the eye is too strong. In fact, it is so strong that, though we might be able to see the disc of the sun, we also experience pain. To be more precise, because the sensory soul is naturally disposed to recognize what disturbs the well-being of the body in general, it also notices that the species of sunlight affecting the eye is too intense and can damage the organ of sight. Consequently, the soul tries to compensate for the damaging affections of the eye. Furthermore, because using a broken instrument takes more effort than using a working instrument, the sensory soul feels pain. This is why the sensory soul acts differently in a healthy body than it does in a sick one, in a sleeping body than in one that is awake, and in a cold body than in a warm one.13 I call this adjustment action of the sensory soul as it senses the “evaluate-and-match” action.

17.3  More than a Feeling We are now in possession of a quite detailed description of the relation between the sensory soul and the body in the context of sensing as Kilwardby understands it, and we have a good idea about how pain comes to be. What still needs to be done is to determine whether being in pain is an intentional act for Kilwardby or not. However, before we can address this issue, there are still a few preliminary steps to follow. I will begin by addressing the intentionality of the sensory soul’s acts in its relation to the body. Do they have any representational content such that they are directed at something? The first act of the sensory soul consists, as we now know, in its attention towards the body as a whole. But although it is oriented towards the body with the aim of protecting it, this first act of the soul does not have clear representational content. While taking care of the body in general, before having to focus on an affected part of the body, the soul is not even aware of performing such an act. However, this first act is still intentional, because it is directed at something, that is, at the body as a whole. I call this type of attention, which does not have a clear representational content, natural intentionality.14 Once the body is affected by something, the second act of the sensory soul intervenes and, with it, another type of intentionality. But it all happens gradually. Consider an example: suppose there is a cup of coffee in front of my eyes. The cup emits through the air its sensible species which are its numerous accidental forms. The way in which these forms exist in the medium differs from the way in which they exist in the actual cup. When a particular sensible species of this cup, say, its

 Kilwardby, DSF §99. See footnote 11 above.  For a more detailed description of the various types of intentionality in Kilwardby’s theory of sense perception, see Băltuță (2019).

13 14

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visible species, reaches and informs my eye, it travels through a system of nerves to the organ of the common sense where the sensory soul has access to it.15 The ­sensory soul co-mingles with this sensible species, assimilates itself to it, and constructs an image.16 This image is nothing but the content of the second act of the sensory soul, that is, of the focusing of its attention towards a specific affection of the body. What the content of this second act offers is twofold: it provides, on the one hand, information about the location of the affection and, on the other hand, it provides information about what kind of affection the body has suffered—in particular, if the sensible species endangers the body in some way or if it is beneficial to the body. How the image conveys information about the location of the affection is pretty clear, but how the sensory soul is able to construct an image and evaluate it at the same time is a more complicated issue. The difficulty of accounting for the evaluation aspect of the image stems from the fact that the sensory soul is not yet aware of having constructed this image. Kilwardby thinks that, first, we construct images of all the things that affect our body, then the sensory soul reflects on itself and on all of the images it has constructed, and only afterwards does it pick out a particular image to focus on. It ends up picking a particular image because that particular image rather than another conveys information that is more important for the integrity and well-being of the body: […] the sensory soul, constructing in itself an image of the sensible thing, even if it were to do this without sensing or apprehending the image up to this point, is not making the image accidentally, but naturally and, as if directed by superior causes which have the cognition

 See Kilwardby, DSF §168: “Ad secundum [§§151–157] bene concedendum quod species rerum sensibilium perueniunt ad sensum communem per sensus particulares, et ad organum illius per organa eorum, et post sensum communem sequitur ymaginacio. Set ad exponendum modum perueniendi a sensu particulari ad communem primo oportet aliquid dicere de ipsis instrumentis sensuum. Notandum igitur quod secundum auctores qui de illis loquuntur, animal sentit per quosdam neruos continentes spiritum quemdam corporalem subtilem ualde, qui est immediatum instrumentum anime. Et iste spiritus corporalis suscipit species sensibilium inmediate citra animam sensitiuam, et inde eas haurit anima. ‘Instrumentum’ ergo sentiendi quandoque dicitur totum coniunctum ex nemo et dicto spiritu corporali, aliquando uero solus ipse spiritus. Totum enim coniunctum etsi sit per se instrumentum sentiendi, non tamen primum. Spiritus autem ipse est per se et primum.” 16  See Kilwardby, DSF §118: “Ad quintum [§74], quod adducitur de libro De Trinitate, dicendum quod illud uerbum, anima conbibit speciem per sensum corporis, metaphorice dictum est. Sicut enim per ciphum bibitur liquor, sic per organum corporale attrahitur species; tamen in hoc dissimilitudo, quod ibi idem liquor numero qui erat in cipho intus trahitur, set hic similitudo de similitudine que erat in organo non eadem omnino. Et ideo dicit per sensum corporis bibi speciem, idest per organum corporale, quia illud est adminiculum et quasi uas vnde aliquo modo hauritur species. Illud autem uerbum quo dicit quod sensus ex corpore sensibili formatur, debet intelligi ita quod sensus accipiatur pro corporeo organo et non pro spiritu sensitiuo. Unde Augustinus, De Trinitate, libro 11, capitulo 4: Sensus autem oculorum non ob aliud sensus corporis dicitur nisi quia et ipsi oculi menbra sunt corporis. Et quamuis non sentiat corpus exanime, anima tamen commixta corpori per instrumentum sensus uocatur, qui eciam passione corporis cum quisque excecatur extinguitur.” 15

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and the regulative art, is led by a natural instinct. (Kilwardby, DSF §128; trans. 1993, p. 102)17

The sensory soul constructs images based on an innate pattern of activity. It does it analogously to a camera. The images are thus similar to the forms residing in the sensible species. Given the teleological functioning of the soul, the constructed images are also, in accordance with the sensible species which affect the body, precategorized into neutral, pleasant, avoidable, dangerous, harmful, etc.18 It is due to this pre-categorization that the soul is able to distinguish the images which are most relevant for its task and thus those to which it should pay particular attention. What about the intentionality of these acts of the sensory soul? When the body is affected by an external thing, the soul attends to this affected body part by constructing an image of it. The image is the representational content of the second and third acts of the sensory soul. Through the image, the sensory soul attends to the affected body part—that is the second act of the sensory soul. By reflecting on the image, the sensory soul becomes aware of itself and of its doings—the third act of the sensory soul. The second act is clearly intentional due to its representational content which makes it be directed at the affected part of the body. This representational content is also present in the third act, which is, however, not directed at the same thing, that is, the affected part of the body. It is directed, by ricochet, to the constructor of the images, which is the sensory soul itself. Consequently, it too is intentional. Having reached this stage of my analysis of the sensory soul’s acts in the context of sensing, I come to a clear-cut answer to the question regarding the intentionality of pain. Yes, for Kilwardby, bodily pain is intentional. But how can it be more than a mere sensation? How can pain be directed at something? What is that something at which pain is directed? Pain comes to be when the sensory soul attends to certain affections of the body, that is, when it reflects on the images pre-categorized as harmful or dangerous and tries to compensate for the damage done by the external stimuli so that the body can still function within normal parameters. These pre-­ categorized images are the content of pain, and they represent the damaged parts of the body and their location. Consequently, bodily in pain is, in this way, intentional insofar as it is directed at the damaged part of the body.

17.4  Conclusion My aim in this paper has been to show that, according to Kilwardby, bodily pain is not a mere sensation, but an intentional state of the sensory soul. Getting clear on the issue in question required distinguishing between mere sensations and

 “[…] spiritus sensitiuus formans in se ymaginem rei sensibilis, etsi hoc fecerit non sentiens neque apprehendens adhuc ipsam, non facit hoc casualiter set naturaliter, et prout a superioribus causis cognicionem et artem regitiuam habentibus directus, instinctu naturali ducitur.” 18  See Băltuță (2020). 17

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sensations that also involve intentional states. Simply put, mere sensations are experienced by a subject, but not directed at anything. By contrast, intentional states cannot be reduced to a subject’s sensations. Intentional states are also directed at something. Consequently, if pain is a mere sensation, it does not tell us anything beyond the feeling we have when we experience it. If, on the contrary, pain is an intentional state, when we feel it, we are also being directed towards the body part that hurts. By analysing the relationship between the body and the sensory soul in the context of sensing, we can see that, for Kilwardby at least, pain has a representational content, and, in particular, that it is directed at the body part that is damaged and hurts. To illustrate once more why Kilwardby treats pain as intentional, let us return to the midnight encounter between my little toe and the doorjamb. Before I stub my toe, my sensory soul silently pays attention to the well-being of my whole body, while I am pursuing my quest for a glass of water. The unfortunate event takes place. The silence ends abruptly. My sensory soul notices the disturbance and immediately constructs an image matching not only the sensible species of the doorjamb’s hard corner affecting my body, but also the location and the gravity of the damage. Consequently, the sensory soul adapts to the new situation. It evaluates the state of the toe and tries to keep it functional. This is how pain comes to be. It is directed, through the image constructed by the soul, to the toe. This directionality is what offers pain its intentional character. Is there hope to bring contemporary and medieval stands on the intentional character of pain into dialogue? Contemporary philosophers, such as Tye and Cutter, hold a similar position on the intentionality of pain. Just as Kilwardby does, they state that pain is intentional because it is about the damaged part of the body. They also believe the experience of pain matches the harm inflicted on the body. Given such similarities, the dialogue is certainly possible. However, the similarities should not be overstated, and the difficulty of such a dialogue should not be understated, for the positions are built on different metaphysical grounds. The extent of the dialogue is still to be established, but one thing is certain: the construal of pain as intentional has its roots at least as far back as the thirteenth century. Acknowledgments  I would like to convey my deepest thanks to the three anonymous reviewers who took the time to read the manuscript of this paper and who offered me numerous valuable suggestions. Joseph Stenberg and Sergiu Sava were kind enough to help me along the way with ideas, discussions, and language corrections. A first draft of this paper was presented in Berlin at the Medieval Gatherings coordinated by Nicola Polloni. I would like to thank the audience for the stimulating discussions.

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References Primary Sources Kilwardby, R. (1987). On time and imagination. Part 1 (A. Broadie, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Kilwardby, R. (1992). Quaestiones in librum secundum Sententiarum (G. Leibold, Ed. & Trans.). Verlag der Bayerischen Akadeie der Wissenschaften. Kilwardby, R. (1993). On time and imagination. Part 2 (A. Broadie, Trans.). Oxford University Press.

Secondary Sources Băltuță, E. (2019). The escape artist: Robert Kilwardby on objects as sine qua non causes. In E. Băltuță (Ed.), Medieval perceptual puzzles: Theories of sense perception in the 13th and 14th centuries (pp. 179–212). Brill. Băltuță, E. (2020). Selective attention beyond activity: Robert Kilwardby’s theory of perception. In V. Decaix & A. M. Mora-Márquez (Eds.), Active cognition: Challenges to an Aristotelian tradition (pp. 37–56). Springer. Knuuttila, S. (2010). Pain. In H. Lagerlund (Ed.), Encyclopedia of medieval philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500 (p. 909). Springer. McGinn, C. (1996). The character of mind. Oxford University Press. Mowbray, D. (2009). Pain and suffering in medieval theology: Academic debates at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century. Boydell & Brewer. Searle, J. (1992). The rediscovery of the mind. MIT Press. Silva, J. F. (2008). Robert Kilwardby on sense perception. In S. Knuuttila & P. Kärkkäinen (Eds.), Theories of perception in medieval and early modern philosophy (pp. 87–100). Springer. Silva, J. F. (2012). Robert Kilwardby on the human soul: Plurality of forms and censorship in the thirteenth century. Brill. Silva, J. F. (2013). Robert Kilwardby on the theory of the soul and epistemology. In H. Lagerlund & P. Thom (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of Robert Kilwardby (pp. 275–313). Brill. Silva, J.  F. (2016). Robert Kilwardby. In E.  N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/ robert-­kilwardby Silva, J.  F., & Toivanen, J. (2010). The active nature of the soul in sense perception: Robert Kilwardby and Peter Olivi. Vivarium, 48(3), 245–278. Sirridge, M. (2007). “Utrum idem sint dicere et intelligere sive videre in mente”: Robert Kilwardby, Quaestiones in librum primum Sententiarum. Vivarium, 45(2), 253–268. Thomson, S. H. (1938). Studies in the life of Robert Kilwardby, O. P. New Scholasticism, 12(2), 190–194. Tye, M. (1995). Ten problems of consciousness. MIT Press. Yrjönsuuri, M. (2008). Pietro D’Abano and the anatomy of perception. In S.  Knuuttila & P.  Kärkkäinen (Eds.), Theories of perception in medieval and early modern philosophy (pp. 117–130). Springer. Elena Băltuță  (Ph.D., Al. I.  Cuza University, 2012), is currently an independent scholar. She published a monograph on Thomas Aquinas’s theory of intentionality (Humanitas, 2013), and edited the volume Medieval perceptual puzzles: Theories of sense perception in the 13th and 14th centuries (Brill 2019), and several articles and chapters on medieval metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology.

Chapter 18

Scaring Away the Spectre of Equivocation: A Comment Sonja Schierbaum

Abstract  My general aim in commenting on Băltuță’s paper is to elucidate the metaphor of a dialogue she uses to characterize the general, methodological framework of her undertaking. For this purpose, I turn to a certain strand of the contemporary discussion of the role of the historian of philosophy. According to Băltuță, the determination of the limits of such a dialogue is a matter of degree, not of principle. I agree with her. My concern is that the determination of the limits of the dialogue is thwarted if the central, contemporary notion that is taken to be applicable to the historical account in question is used equivocally. In my view, there is a serious concern that Băltuță’s account equivocates on the term “intentional,” making it difficult to determine the limits of the dialogue between contemporary and medieval views on the intentionality of pain. My specific aim in this comment is to show that although Băltuță equivocates on the term “intentional,” her analysis of Kilwardby’s account can be adjusted such that her argument succeeds in showing that pain is in fact an intentional state for Kilwardby. Keywords  Dialogue-model · Intentional state · Equivocal use · Representational content

In her paper, Elena Băltuță sets out to accomplish a task she modestly describes as preliminary, namely to answer the question as to “whether pain was conceived of as intentional” by the thirteenth century philosopher Robert Kilwardby. According to Băltuță, answering this question is an important, yet preliminary step “if we hope to bring contemporary and medieval views on intentionality and pain into dialogue” (Sect. 17.1). She writes: “Generally speaking, the two historical periods share enough that they are able to engage in dialogue, but it is often difficult to know the

S. Schierbaum (*) Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_18

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limits of such engagement” (Sect. 17.1; italics mine). I take this to mean that the determination of the limits of such a dialogue is a matter of degree, not of principle. My concern is that the determination of the limits of the dialogue is thwarted if the central, contemporary notion that is taken to be applicable to the historical account in question is used equivocally. In my view, there is a serious concern that Băltuță’s account equivocates on the term “intentional,” making it difficult to determine the limits of the dialogue between contemporary and medieval views on the intentionality of pain. The problem is that it is not clear how exactly she intends to relate her use of the term “intentional” to contemporary usages for which the intentionality is connected with the representational content of mental states or acts. My aim in this comment is to show that although Băltuță equivocates on the term “intentional,” her analysis of Kilwardby’s account can be adjusted such that her argument succeeds in showing that pain is in fact an intentional state for Kilwardby. To accomplish this, I first determine how Băltuță employs the contemporary notion of “intentional” throughout her paper. On this basis, I render explicit her general argumentative strategy to accomplish her task, before I turn to the general methodological issue and develop the metaphor of a dialogue by turning to a strand of the actual debate concerning the relation between philosophy and its history. Although Băltuță does not explicitly state how she intends to use the term “intentional,” her intended usage can be gathered from the example given in her introductory remarks. There she asks whether “this conscious state of mind” (of experiencing pain after stubbing one’s toe) is also intentional, that is, “directed at something.” This corresponds to a common usage in the contemporary discussion, according to which a mental state is intentional if it is directed at something or about something.1 According to Băltuță, however, there is more to it, since a state’s being directed at something appears to go hand in hand with the state’s power to represent something. Her point, as I see it, is that the state is directed at that which it represents. As Băltuță puts it: “I feel pain, and the state I am in has some representational content, which directs it at something. It represents, say, my little toe as being injured” (Sect. 17.1). In this respect, Băltuță agrees with the contemporary view, which says that a mental state’s being directed at something is strongly connected with the state’s (having a) representational content.2 The “strong connection” I have in mind can be illustrated by considering whether it is possible that a mental state be directed at

 See Searle (2001, p. 34).  Such a view is expressed, for example, in the opening paragraph of the SEP-article on “Intentionality.” The author writes: “In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs. To say of an individual’s mental states that they have intentionality is to say that they are mental representations or that they have contents” (Jacob 2019; italics mine). I think the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) in general is representative of the current debates of contemporary philosophy. Therefore, I find it is justified to refer to the article on intentionality as a reliable indicator of the current state of the art. 1 2

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something without having a representational content. According to the “strong connection”-view, the answer should be “No.”3 Thus, it seems to me that Băltuță implicitly proceeds from the assumption that only states with representational content—that is, states that represent something— are intentional, since it is by means of their representational content that they are directed at something at all. To be precise, it seems that a state is directed at that which it represents. And of course, it makes sense to Băltuță to proceed from this assumption, since the two camps she identifies within the contemporary debate concerning whether pain is intentional proceed from it, too. I would like to note, however, that this view is not uncontroversial in the current debate. For instance, some authors deny that only states with representational content can be intentional.4 On this representationalist basis, however, Băltuță can successfully argue that pain, in Kilwardby’s account, is an intentional state. The structure of her argument can be reconstructed as follows: 1. A mental state is intentional if it is directed at something. (First feature of the “strong connection”-view). 2. The representational content of a mental state directs the mental state at something. 3. A mental state is directed at that which it represents. (Second feature of the “strong connection”-view). 4. Therefore, a mental state is intentional only if it represents something. 5. A state of pain represents the body part that is damaged (according to Kilwardby). 6. Thus (from 2, 3 and 5), a state of pain is directed at the damaged body part. 7. Therefore, a state of pain is intentional (according to Kilwardby). Against this backdrop, we can try to elucidate the implications of the metaphor of a dialogue Băltuță offers to describe her general methodological approach. She briefly distinguishes between what she calls a “real” dialogue and the action of “projecting our contemporary interpretation onto their medieval theories.” Băltuță maintains that we can be certain to enter into a “real” dialogue if we “become well acquainted with both the details of the conceptions defended in medieval philosophy and the corresponding medieval framework” (Sect. 17.1). In other words, the possibility of a “real dialogue” presupposes the accurate reconstruction of the historical position in question. I now want to show that Băltuță’s approach resembles a position that is described as “the dialogue model” (Perler 2018, p. 141) in a strand of the contemporary debate on the methodology of the historiography of philosophy. This model is characterized by the assumption of continuity. Perler writes: 3  Supporters of such a view are committed to one or another form of representationalism. According to representationalism, there is a representational content that mediates the relation of the mental state to the thing that is thereby intended. In the presentation of this matter, I closely follow Drummond (2012, p.  122). John Searle, Tim Crane, and Dag Føllesdal are committed to representationalism. 4  See Drummond (2012).

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But if we work hard on the medieval sources, and if we use the method and language of analytic philosophy in reconstructing the relevant arguments, we see that there is continuity between medieval and contemporary philosophy and that we can engage in discussions with our medieval counterparts just as we do with contemporary colleagues. (Perler 2018, p. 142)

The “continuity between medieval and contemporary philosophy,” as well as the “resemblance” of medieval and contemporary discussions at which Băltuță hints, can be interpreted as implying that the historical and the contemporary philosophical problems are sufficiently similar to justify the application of contemporary concepts to medieval problems.5 The sufficient resemblance of the philosophical problems then allows the scholar to apply contemporary notions to the historical approach, and thus prepare the ground for a comparison by means of a thorough reconstruction of the historical view. This approach, Perler points out, has some clear advantages, not least because, according to this approach, “it is not only possible to reconstruct a medieval solution to a given problem, but also to evaluate it, perhaps even to criticise it by using arguments that are discussed today” (Perler 2018, p. 142). It is fairly clear that Băltuță proceeds within such a framework in her “preliminary” task of reconstructing Kilwardby’s account of pain as an intentional state. And she is not in bad company in doing so, since, as Perler notes, this dialogue model has been very influential in the late twentieth century, when analytically trained philosophers rediscovered many parts of the history of philosophy (Perler 2018, p. 142), such as the medieval period. Although, as Perler further points out, such an approach can also be criticized on good grounds,6 the point I want to focus on here, as indicated above, is that this approach is thwarted by the equivocal use of the central notion in question. In my view, some tension arises from Băltuță’s presentation of the higher order acts involved in the sensory soul’s representation of pain in part 3 of her paper.7 In this context, her use of “intentional” appears to be equivocal. According to her presentation, the soul first constructs an image of the affected part of the body, which in turn is the representational content of the second act by which means the soul “attends to the affected body part.” However, by means of yet another, third act, which is directed at the second act, the sensory soul “becomes aware of itself and of its doings.” Băltuță writes: The second act is clearly intentional due to its representational content which makes it be directed at the affected part of the body. This representational content is also present in the

5  It is justified to take the resemblance of the philosophical assumption or problem in question to be a matter of degree, insofar as the comparability of positions might indeed be restricted by factors such as differences in the underlying metaphysical framework. I briefly come back to this point at the end of this comment. 6  For this critique, see Perler (2018, p. 143). 7  Note that Băltuță’s use of the term “acts” or “states” is not altogether consistent. It would be preferable, perhaps, if she used the term “act” throughout, since this use would be closer to the medieval, Aristotelian framework according to which the soul’s powers are actualized by means of acts (actus). On this terminological aspect, see Panaccio (2004, p. 21).

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third act, which is, however, not directed at the same thing, that is, the affected part of the body. It is directed by ricochet to the constructor of the images, which is the sensory soul itself. Consequently, it too is intentional. (Sect. 17.3; italics mine)

Recall that, as I see it, Băltuță uses the term “intentional” in a way that implies that a state is intentional if it is directed at something, and directed at that which it represents. I called this the “strong connection”-view. My point is that the way the relation between the second and the third act is here characterized leaves room for the interpretation that what is represented by an act does not need to be the same as that which the act is actually directed at. If, however, that which an act is directed at does not need to be the same as that which the act represents, then the question arises as to what exactly it is that accounts for an act being intentional. Such an approach would, of course, not comply with the “strong connection”-view. In Băltuță’s presentation, it sounds as if the second act (representing the damaged body part) is intentional because its representational content directs it at that which it represents—note that this complies with the “strong connection”-view—, whereas the third act, by means of which the sensory soul becomes aware of itself, is intentional because it is directed at the sensory soul, at least indirectly. As Băltuță puts it, the representational content of the second act is also “present” in the third act, but the third act is not directed at that which the second act represents; rather, it is somehow directed at the sensory soul, as the “author” of all these acts. It is unclear, however, whether the third act also somehow represents the sensory soul. It should be clear that this use of the term “intentional” is not univocal and could make it difficult to determine the exact extent to which it is possible to compare medieval and historical accounts according to the “dialogue”-model sketched above. However, this difficulty can be rectified. Suppose that by “reflecting on the second act” by means of a third act, the sensory soul becomes aware of itself as experiencing pain—that is, the representational content of the second act (the damaged body part) could also be part of the representational content of the third act. In addition to the representation of the damaged body part, however, the third act could also represent the second act as an act of the sensory soul—in other words, as an actualization of the soul’s power—so that by reflecting on the second act, the soul would represent herself as experiencing pain: thus, she would be directed at her actual state of experiencing pain as her own. This, of course, is only a provisional idea, one that would need to be carefully adjusted to the subtleties of Kilwardby’s metaphysics of the sensory soul. I would like to emphasize that the great merit of Băltuță’s paper is that she clearly and unequivocally shows that pain, in Kilwardby’s account, is an intentional state (or act) in some contemporary sense. Her approach is justified, not least by the underlying dialogue-model she chooses. In her concluding remarks, she also points out that the limits of comparability can only be determined if the ontological commitments of the respective views are properly considered. Surely the general benefit of discussing medieval positions is that they make us aware of alternatives, especially of the metaphysical “costs” of our approaches.8 Thus, awareness of historical  See Antognazza (2014).

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positions can bring the contemporary researcher to reflect on her own metaphysical commitments and demand reasons for them. At the end of such a process of comparing positions, her own metaphysical commitments might be better justified. Băltuță’s case study of pain as an intentional state contributes to this purpose.

References Antognazza, M. R. (2014). The benefit to philosophy of the study of its history. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2014.974020 Băltuță, E. (2021). Does bodily pain have an intentional character? Robert Kilwardby’s answer. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Drummond, J.  J. (2012). Intentionality without representationalism. In D.  Zahavi (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of contemporary phenomenology (pp. 115–133). Oxford University Press. Jacob, P. (2019). Intentionality. In E.  N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2019 ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2019/entries/ intentionality/ Panaccio, C. (2004). Ockham on concepts. Aldershot. Perler, D. (2018). The alienation effect in the historiography of philosophy. In M. van Ackeren (Ed.), Philosophy and the historical perspective (pp. 140–154). Oxford University Press. Searle, J. (2001). Rationality in action. MIT Press. Sonja Schierbaum  is currently leader of the Emmy Noether research group “Practical Reasons Before Kant (1720–1780)” at the University of Würzburg, Germany, which is funded by the German Research Foundation. Before that, she conducted research for her own project on the compatibility of freedom and rationality in action in G.W.  Leibniz and Chr. A. Crusius at the University of Hamburg. Before turning to early modern philosophy, she earned her PhD at the University of Hamburg in 2012 with a dissertation on Ockham’s assumption of mental speech. She has also collaborated with Prof. Dominik Perler (HU Berlin) on a project on medieval conceptions of self-knowledge. Her research focuses on epistemology, philosophy of mind, theory of action, and issues in moral philosophy, both in medieval and early modern philosophy.

Part IX

John Buridan and William Ockham on Craft

Chapter 19

Is Ars an Intellectual Virtue? John Buridan on Craft Aline Medeiros Ramos

Abstract  Scholarship on the philosophy of the Late Middle Ages has tended to overlook certain subject matters, especially some pertaining to ethics and political philosophy. My object of study in this paper is one of these overlooked notions, the idea of craft (ars) as an intellectual virtue. While recent publications have focused on sapientia, and scientia, this paper aims to rehabilitate ars as a virtue, in particular John Buridan’s understanding of craft as an intellectual virtue in his Quaestiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum. My goal is to examine Buridan’s analysis of craft as expounded in this commentary. Once the Picardian master’s theses have been presented, and the objections he raises have been reviewed along with the solutions proposed to those objections, I briefly suggest why craft might have been overlooked as a virtue. Keywords  Buridan · Craft · Virtues · Medieval ethics · Intellectual virtues · Factive intellect · Scholasticism

19.1  Introduction Given its vast corpus and thematic diversity, it is no surprise that the current scholarship on the philosophy of the Late Middle Ages has tended to overlook certain subject matters, especially some pertaining to ethics and political philosophy. A conspicuous example of this is attested to in the recent research on scholastic virtue theory: whereas in the last few decades there has been increasing interest in the

A. Medeiros Ramos (*) Philosophy Department, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada Department of Philosophy & Arts, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_19

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discussion concerning virtues and habitus1—and, more specifically, epistemic virtues such as sapientia2 and scientia,3—one intellectual virtue, namely craft (ars),4 seems to be consistently overlooked,5 perhaps due to its status as a “minor” or “subordinate” virtue.6 While this article does not purport to offer ars full historical reparations, it intends to rehabilitate it as an intellectual virtue worthy of consideration, and note some aspects of its importance to the general scheme of virtues in scholasticism. To that end, I discuss the status of craft as an intellectual virtue in John Buridan’s (c. 1300–c. 1361) philosophy, namely in his long commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.7

 See, e.g., Faucher & Roques (2018).  See, e.g., Saarinen (2006) and Hibbs (2001). 3  See, e.g., Pasnau (2010) and Biard (2012). 4  For the purposes of this paper, unless otherwise noted, I will be translating the Latin term “ars,” which in the Aristotelian context corresponds to the Greek τέχνη, as “craft,” for I believe it captures the discussion at hand better than the direct cognate “art.” Note, however, that the idea expressed by its adjectival correlate (viz. artifex) used throughout the text will be “skilled.” 5  The notable exception being Craemer-Ruegenberg and Speer’s Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (1994). Although their book approaches the subject matter very broadly, ars is rarely taken merely as the virtue but rather in contexts where it stands as near-synonym to scientia, namely as a set of scientific-philosophical disciplines—such as when it is used in the contraposition of the artes liberales to the artes mechanicae, or the discussion about which discipline ought to be called “ars artium.” Another book which could be considered an exception is Chandelier, Verna and Weill-Parot’s (2017) Science et technique au Moyen Âge (XIIe–XVe siècles), but it is my understanding that only Robert’s (2017) article in that volume actually lives up to the strictly philosophical questions to which the title of the book may lend itself. 6  It is interesting to note that ars did not figure among the three intellectual virtues in the arts masters’ commentaries on the Ethica vetus and Ethics nova (i.e., Ethics commentaries written until the first half of the thirteenth century), which were restricted namely to intelligentia, sapientia and fronesis/prudentia. With the development of Ethics commentaries based on the whole of the Nicomachean Ethics, following the appearance of Herman the German’s paraphrasis of Moerbeke’s translation to the ten books and the reestablishment of Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues as scientia, intellectus, prudentia, sapientia and ars, the first of these was given a prominent position in subsequent debates, whereas the last continued to be somewhat neglected. On the intellectual virtues according to the arts masters in the first half of the thirteenth century, see Zavattero (2007, pp. 49–51), and Lafleur (1994, pp. 59–60). 7  Considering that there is currently no published modern edition of this text, critical or otherwise, all citations to the Latin text will be my transcriptions from the manuscripts. For the purposes of this paper, I have used mainly MS. Vat. urb. 198, for, comparing it with collations from other books of Buridan’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, this seems to be a reliable manuscript, containing no important omissions or significant errors. The collation I have used to compare to mine was R. J. Kilcullen’s “Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, book 10: Corrected text,” from 1996/1999, a careful edition and detailed collation of 8 manuscripts and 2 early printed editions of Book X of Buridan’s Ethics, which was used as the basis for McGrade’s, Kilcullen’s, and Kempshall’s translation of the text, published in 2000 as “Jean Buridan: Questions on Book X of the Ethics” in The Cambridge translations of medieval philosophical texts. The collation and Latin edition, which have not been published, used to be available on Kilcullen’s personal webpage (http://www. humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/). Unfortunately, this work is no longer available online. All punctuation marks and emphasis present in the transcribed Latin text are my own. 1 2

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In what follows, after a succinct presentation of some background discussions on τέχνη/ars, I will outline Buridan’s view of craft, focusing on question 8 of Book VI of his Quaestiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum.8 Although Buridan’s text follows the standard format of a scholastic question,9 I will present a restructured version of the text for the benefit of the reader. I will start by expounding the Picardian arts master’s theses and supporting arguments, sparingly comparing and contrasting them with other medieval authors’ wherever such comparisons might prove useful: I will rely on excerpts by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)10 and Radulphus Brito (c. 1270–c. 1320).11 Although many similarities can be noted between Buridan and Brito—as is to be somewhat expected, given how Buridan, a maître ès arts himself, is inscribed in a long tradition of Parisian arts masters,12—for the sake of conciseness, I will not thoroughly address those similarities in this paper. Once Buridan’s own reasoning is fully laid out, I will present a series of possible objections Buridan raises to his own thesis that craft is a virtue, and explain how he responds to each, with the addition of a few further clarifications to the main theses. Finally, in my concluding remarks, I will address a few issues concerning how craft ranks among virtues and propose a very brief assessment of what could be gained were it afforded a more systematic study. On the subject of craft, Eustratius of Nicaea (c. 1050–c. 1120), one of the greatest authorities on Aristotelian ethics, wrote that No one at all having reason can ignore what craft is, since it is a collection of discovered comprehensions, exercised and tested to some good end of the life of those who have reason. Indeed, that definition makes clear that craft has as its end some good, and that this end is good and useful to human life. (In Ethicam Nicomacheam I 1, 23–28; my translation)13

This passage testifies to medieval and ancient philosophical authorities having a very different notion of craft from the one we currently have. While our understanding of craft14 might not lend it an important philosophical status and certainly not warrant it a place among virtues, the very first pages of Aristotle’s Metaphysics paints a completely different picture:

 Henceforth, QNE. All translations from Buridan’s QNE used here are my own.  In its original form, the text opens with objections, which are followed by a counter-argument appealing to the authority of Aristotle, followed by Buridan’s own theses. Only after his thesis has been thoroughly explained does Buridan, at the very end of the quæstio, take the time to respond to the initial objections. 10  Especially ST I-II, q. 57, a. 3. 11  Questiones super librum Ethicorum Aristotelis, q. 140. 12  Here, I am thinking of Radulphus Brito, Giles of Orleans and numerous “anonymous” (i.e., unidentified) arts masters, such as the so-called “anonymous of Erlangen.” 13  Eustratius (1973, p. 9), in Grosseteste’s Latin translation: “Quid quidem est ars, nullus omnino rationis particeps ignorat quoniam est collectio ex adinventis comprehensionibus, exercitatis et probatis ad aliquem finem bonum eorum quae in vita. Et haec enim definitio manifestat artem finem habentem bonum aliquod. Hunc autem ad humanam vitam bonum et utilem.” 14  Either as the dexterity involved in skilled labour for which one has trained (maybe even a trade) or as a type of skill tantamount to guile (as when we call someone “crafty”). 8 9

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[…] science and craft come to men through experience; for “experience made craft,” as Polus says, “but inexperience luck.” Now craft arises when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers—this is a matter of craft. (981a; trans. 1924, with minor changes)

In agreement with Aristotle’s description in the Metaphysics and in the Nicomachean Ethics (e.g. 1139b–1140a), in the Middle Ages, craft is a broad concept which goes far beyond what is acquired through the practice of medicine to include dispositions related to architecture, shipbuilding, agriculture, warfare, trade, mantic activities (such as necromancy or witchcraft), rhetoric, and dialectic, to name just a few. How, then, should we understand what craft is and the role it plays in relation to, say, science? Can they coincide? If we rely on this Aristotelian understanding of craft (broader than our current understanding), could we still agree with Aristotle (NE 1139b) that craft should be counted among the five intellectual virtues? In light of these questions and the course of examination I set out to follow above, what I present here is a view of craft which is mostly of historical interest to philosophers, but the problems raised in the medieval discussion could certainly prove to be more broadly thought-provoking, if one were to consider it in the context of current debates on technology and its uses in society.

19.2  Buridan: Ars Is a Virtue In QNE VI 8, Buridan examines the question of whether craft is a virtue. Although Aristotle had listed craft among the five intellectual virtues in NE 1139b, we seem to have a good number of reasons to think that craft is not a virtue: craft looks more like a power or a capacity than a virtue (Sect. 19.3.1); sometimes it seems to be in our best interest that craft be limited or forbidden (which is not the case with any other virtue) (Sect. 19.3.2); it is not perfective like other virtues, in the sense that it does not perfect human activity, but merely guarantees that the end product of the activity is good (Sect. 19.3.3), and also in the sense that it does not seem to perfect us in the same way as other virtues do (i.e., making us good) (Sect. 19.3.4); and if we say that there is a virtue of craft, as one would, then craft cannot be a virtue (Sect. 19.3.5). Before looking at these objections, we should first state that Buridan’s main argument in this quaestio is that ars is indeed a virtue. He proposes two theses to support that claim: “First, that every craft is a virtue of some sort. Second, that no craft is a virtue of a human being as a human being.”15 Although Buridan parses out his two theses one at a time, as we will see below, they must be understood as

 “Dicenda sunt duo. Primo, quod omnis ars est virtus quaedam. Secundo, quod nulla ars est virtus hominis secundum quod homo.”

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necessarily intertwined. The two theses could be translated into a single proposition, namely that craft is a virtue (and an intellectual one at that) because it is the habitus of the internal work of the factive intellect. This single proposition more clearly translates the two theses above when we add emphasis to different parts of the statement: (T1) Every craft is a virtue of some sort. (T2) No craft is a virtue of a human being qua human being.

= Craft is a virtue because it is the habitus of the internal work of the factive intellect. = Craft is a virtue because it is the habitus of the internal work of the factive intellect.

This difference in emphasis will be clarified in the two subsections that follow.

19.2.1  First Thesis: Every Craft Is a Virtue of some Sort As a reaction to the presentation of the first thesis, we might ask ourselves what exactly Buridan means by “every craft is a virtue of some sort,” i.e., why Buridan formulates it in that way, instead of simply saying that craft is a virtue. As Buridan will explain in his response to the objections to his theses—and as had been said in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics (1106a)—a virtue is that by which a person becomes good, and which renders their work equally good.16 So, for craft to be considered a virtue, it has to fit that description, i.e., perfect the person having it and render their work good as well. And it does just that, according to Buridan;17 therefore, it is a virtue. But we still need to examine how and in what sense craft accomplishes those feats. The first thing to consider here is how craft perfects us or makes us better. Surely craft cannot perfect us in a moral sense. We do not become morally good (or better) because of becoming skilled in craft: craft, on its own, is morally neutral (Robert 2017, p.  62). This must be considered in light of the compelling objections Buridan faces, which seem to demonstrate that even if craft has good work as its result—where “good” is understood as that which is in accordance with an end considered to be fitting by the intellect—it does not necessarily perfect us (see Sect. 19.3.4 below); so against Buridan’s claim, one of the two conditions above seems not to be met. In order to understand how Buridan manages to demonstrate that one may be perfected by craft, we must understand more thoroughly how craft works, so to speak.

 “Prima conclusio sic probatur: virtus definitive vel descriptive est qui habentem perficit et eius opus bene reddit, ut patet secundo huius.” 17  “Sed omnis ars est huiusmodi [i.e., habentem perficit et eius opus bene reddit].” 16

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Craft, argues the Picardian arts master, perfects us according to the settled disposition we acquire through its activity,18 namely through an intellectual activity of the factive intellect (intellectus factivus), which becomes productive. Indeed, one of the first things Buridan explains in his responsio is that craft is proper to the factive intellect, which it perfects. He says, […] the work of the factive intellect as factive is twofold, namely: internal and external. Internally, it is the ratiocination aiming at a judgment about things that can be made, [and] the goodness of this work is the truth towards which a craft determines the factive intellect. (QNE VI 8)19

Internally, then, the work of the factive intellect is properly intellectual: it makes judgments about things that can be made (factibilia) in view of good work, which is related to the truth as the result of reasoning well. Craft is an intellectual virtue in that it actually determines or directs the factive intellect toward this truth. Externally, when put into effect and acting, for instance, upon the will and eventually causing the subject to make something in a certain way (acting “factively,” so to speak, on matter), the work of the factive intellect is regulated by its internal work, which ultimately means that the work of the factive intellect is dependent on craft either  This is in accordance with the general argument made in QNE VI 1. Cf., especially: “Hec autem que sic dicta sunt, licet habeant apparentiam, tamen non ex toto vera esse videntur, oportet enim ponere differentiam inter habitus et actus illos ex quibus generantur. Videmus ergo quod actus appetitus sive eliciti, sive imperati non generantur per assuetudinem, sed sunt semper in nostra potestate obiecto presente et cognito et non interueniente impedimento extrinseco. Habitus autem in appetitu nostro generantur ex assuetudine. Pro tanto quia non firmantur et perficiuntur in nobis, nisi per actuum frequentationem, hoc enim vocamus ex assuetudine generari. Ita etiam videtur quod in intellectu actuales conclusionum aut principiorum noticie non ex assuetudine, sed per experientiam, vel doctrinam, vel huiusmodi viam aliam generantur. Habitus tamen qui cessante actuali consideratione maneret nonsic, sed firmantur et perficiuntur per frequentatem considerationem, propter quod videmus multos acutissimi ingenii nunquam ad habitum posse peruenire, quia nolunt illam noticiam quam per doctrinam cito et faciliter capiunt frequentare, de quibus dicitur communiter quod quicquid per unam aurem intrat exit per alteram. Videtur ergo quod universaliter habituum generatio proprie sive in appetitu, sive in intellectu sit per assuetudinem, hoc est per actionum seu operationum frequentationem multiplicatam vel si quis dicat quod per quemlibet actum, etiam per primum aliquid ipsius, habitus acquiritur tamen sine assuetudine, hoc est sine actus frequentatione, nec in appetitu, nec in intellectu habitus firmatur et perficitur. Quod autem nos dicimus scientiam acquiri per doctrinam sic habet veritatem, quia ipsa nobis acquiritur per frequentationem actuum qui per doctrinam generantur. Ex quo patet quod rationes precedentis opinionis nihil interimunt eorum que nunc dicta sunt. Nam a principio nos conclusionibus aut principiis assentimus per ratiocinationem aut experientiam. Et cum huiusmodi ratiocinationes et experientias frequentamus, habitus quidem firmatur in nobis, quo quando volumus prompte ratiocinamur. Et quo conclusionem cui sepe per ratiocinationem adhesimus, etiam sine actuali ratione concedimus. Unde concedendum est quod dubiis acquiescere propter consuetudinem acquisitam non ex frequenti ratiocinatione, sed ex frequenti audire tantum, nonest prudentie, propter quod Aristoteles non immerito ratiocinationem extollit. Dicendum est igitur ad questionem propositam quod divisio virtutum humanarum in virtutes intellectuales et virtutes morales appetibiles est bona quod satis apparet in opinione precedente.” 19  “Opus autem intellectus factivi ut factivus duplex est, scilicet interius et exterius. Interius est ratiocinatio ad iudicium de factibilibus, cuius operis bonitas est veritas, ad quam ars determinat intellectum factivum.” 18

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way: directly, when it is internal; and indirectly through the internal work, when it is external—for the goodness of the external work begins in the goodness (and truth-directedness) of the internal work (QNE VI 8).20 The internal work of the factive intellect can be understood as the role of the director (dirigens) in the know-how of a craftsmanship, while the external work corresponds to that of the agent as a doer or maker (agens).21 While the former directs or guides the external work of the factive intellect, the latter inclines us (i.e., our will and, ultimately, our bodies) to the action resulting in production. For craft to be a virtue, it requires both sides of the work of the factive intellect: the external one guarantees its execution so that it can become a settled disposition (i.e., a habitus), while the internal one situates its intellectual-ness and truth-directedness, thus allowing for it to be a virtue in the sense of it being an “excellence,” i.e., in the sense of it perfecting the agent.22 This is how we can get all elements needed to call craft a virtue, i.e., a settled disposition inclining to excellence. This is in line, e.g., with Albert’s understanding of craft requiring both a habitus factivus and a ratio certa, or the idea of craft as a habitus factivus cum ratione.23 If craft is to be deemed a virtue proper to the factive intellect and, more specifically, dependent on the internal work of the factive intellect, that means it is a specific kind of intellectual habitus: a factive habitus. The idea of a factive habitus as a habitus of the factive intellect is not something we find explained across the board in scholastic philosophy, but it is something Aquinas24 and Radulphus both deal with and describe more thoroughly than Buridan, who seems to only take it for granted. According to Radulphus, […] indeed, craft is a true habitus and a factive habitus, because it is about operations going over to external matter, and such is a factive habitus; and active and factive habitus differ because the active habitus is about operations that do not go over to external matter, but which remain in the agent, but the factive habitus is about operations that go over to external matter, and craft is like that. (Questiones super librum Ethicorum Aristotelis, q. 140 (Book VI); my translation and italics)25

 “Opus autem exterius ab interiori opere natum est regulari. Ideo et eius bonitas nata est, ortum habere a bonitate operis interioris, propter quod Aristoteles vult quod ars reddit opus intellectus factivi bonum et bene se habens.” 21  This terminology is borrowed from Robert’s (2017) examination of Albert’s notion of craft. 22  More specifically, the agent’s factive intellect, as the next section will show. 23  Albert, Super Ethica VI 6. On Albert’s understanding of craft and some comparisons between his and Buridan’s ideas, see Robert (2017), esp. pp. 53–63. 24  E.g., Aquinas, De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, ch. 2. 25  “[…] ita ars est habitus verus et est habitus factiuus, quia est circa operationes transeuntes in materiam exteriorem, et talis habitus factiuus; est circa operationes non transeuntes in materiam exteriorem sed remanentes in agente, sed habitus factiuus est circa operationes transeuntes in materiam exteriorem, cuiusmodi est ars” (ed. 2008, p. 490). 20

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Craft is therefore peculiar because as a habitus it is not only directed at truth, as is the case with all other intellectual habitus, but it also gets translated or rendered into external matter, according to or following the internal work of the factive intellect. Although Buridan does not talk about factive habitus specifically in his corpus, if we understand the factive habitus as the result of the work of the factive intellect, he would seem to understand the factive habitus differently from how Radulphus does above, because of his twofold understanding of the work of the factive intellect:26 as I have suggested above, for Buridan, just as for Albert, the factive habitus requires both “action” and “production” while for Radulphus, only the operations carried over to external matter would allow for a factive habitus to be begotten. Moreover, as has been suggested above, it is in our proper understanding of the structure of craft and how it relates to the intellect that we can fully grasp the sense in which it is an intellectual virtue. When we think about the artes, it is usual to observe in the scholastic framework that some are called mechanical and some are called liberal. The former are those whose end is work, i.e., “production” or “making,” leading to the accomplishment of an external work or result (in our example of the ars domificatoria, the external work accomplished would be a house), and the latter are those whose end is activity,27 leading to the production of a different kind of outcome, for instance, truth. The subject matter of the so-called liberal (or “freeborn”) artes is some agent’s intellect: what undergoes change in the case of the liberal arts is not some kind of external matter, but the agent’s own soul. Thus, liberal arts, falling under the category of craft, also produce something good, namely in perfecting someone’s intellect through learning. And even though in this latter case the external work is not material in the same sense as in the ars domificatoria, for instance, both cases rely on a presupposed internal work, directed to truth. The internal work of craft is thus to refer that intellect to the true and good, directing the agent in their work with right reason. Although the internal work of craft might seem worthier of the name “virtue” than the external work, which could be compared to the work of chance (in that it may or may not follow what is proposed by its internal correlate), that is not really the case. First, because, whereas the effects of mere chance are fleeting, in both kinds of artes something remains, firmly: the transformation of the material object is only evidently perceived in the case of mechanical crafts, but the disposition to being directed to the right kind of intellectual activity is settled in both cases—the exemplary case being that of the liberal arts, whereby we acquire a mental habitus directing us to reason truly. And second, because the external work requires or depends on the internal work,28 and is thus likewise mediated by and requires its truth-directedness.  See n. 19 above.  The distinction between “production” (sometimes referred to as “effection”) and “activity” concerns particular aspects of an operation. The former refers to what properly pertains to craft, and the latter refers to the kind of operation more commonly associated with prudence, their preoperative correlates being the factibilia and agibilia, respectively. 28  See n. 20 above. 26 27

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Thus, craft, regardless of its being taken as an ars mechanica or an ars liberalis, is involved in the perfection and truth-aiming of the factive intellect. And this brings us to another standard definition of virtue that one would find in other questions, if one were to systematically examine the whole of Buridan’s colossal commentary on the Ethics: that virtue is also defined by being the cause of the best work of which a power is capable.29 If we consider along with that what has just been said about the factive intellect—that it ought to reason correctly about things that can be made— then craft seems to determine the (factive) intellect, directing it to its best work (QNE VI 8).30 Thus, craft would fulfil the two conditions mentioned above (namely, make someone good and render their work good) and qualify as a virtue of some sort, especially with respect to its internal work.

19.2.2  S  econd Thesis: No Ars Is a Virtue of a Human Being as a Human Being The second thesis, which, as I have suggested, presents itself as a sort of complementary reiteration of the first, helps us further understand why craft is a virtue of some sort, and not simply a virtue without further qualification, and how it can still be counted among human virtues even if it is not a virtue of humans qua humans. Here, Buridan turns to Book VII of the Nicomachean Ethics (1152b) and to the distinction between human beings who are good secundum quid and those who are good simpliciter. Indeed, as we have seen, craft does not make humans good absolutely. It only seems to make good craftspeople or artisans, for even through the craft of building, as Buridan says, one can build a house badly on purpose, or one can build houses which are good, firm and beautiful, but for bad reasons and/or with bad aims (QNE VI 8).31 Here we can think of a contractor commissioned to build concentration camps knowingly: even if the buildings perfectly suit their purpose

 See, for instance, Buridan, QNE VI 9: “[…] ut dicitur primo de Caelo, ideo etiam dicitur septimo Physicorum quod ‘virtus est dispositio perfecti ad optimum,’ scilicet ad optimum (eius) opus, sed quaedam animae potentia est intellectus practicus seu activus […]”; and QNE VII 5: “Item, sciendum est quod virtus dupliciter accipitur: uno modo proprie, scilicet pro habitu perfecto, videlicet inclinante et determinante potentiam ad optimum opus in quod ipsa potest; alio modo large, pro quolibet habitu inclinante et determinante potentiam ad opera laudabilia” (emphasis mine). This idea can be originally traced back to Aristotle, EE 1218b. 30  “Item virtus attenditur secundum maximum et optimum opus in quod potentia potest, at intellectus factivi, secundum quod est factivus est verum dicere circa factibilia et ad hoc ars determinat intellectum igitur.” 31  “Secunda conclusio probetur sic. Illa non est virtus hominis secundum quod homo, quae non reddit hominem bonum hominem simpliciter, et patet secundo huius [sic], sed ars non reddit hominem simpliciter bonum hominem: quia multi sunt docti artifices et experti, qui sunt mali homines. Puta intemperati aut iniusti: nec mirum quia per artem domificatoriam et secundum artis exigentiam potest domus fieri in se bona, firma et pulchra propter malum finem, sicut propter bonum, et ita male humana malitia.” 29

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and follow the tenets of good architecture and engineering, the builder will not be considered a virtuous human being simpliciter. In this sense, because it is only concerned with the final product and not with the practice itself, craft does not seem to qualify as a virtue in quite the same sense as the other four intellectual virtues,32 or any of the moral virtues. Moreover, virtues are directed to the best work of which agents or those agents’ powers are capable, as has been said above. But craft is only about lowly things and not about acting—and the agibilia—as is proper of prudentia and the moral virtues, nor about contemplating, as is proper of scientia, intellectus and sapientia (QNE VI 8).33 In addition, craft acts on the factive intellect, which is also inferior in comparison to the active (or operative) and the speculative intellect to which those four other intellectual virtues are connected. Now, a virtue, understood as an excellence, ought not to be directed to the lowest or least worthy of our parts, but, instead, to our noblest part, the part by which we are named by metonymy (QNE VI 8).34 Once again, craft does not seem to qualify as a virtue in quite the same sense as them, for it only pertains to a lowly part of our intellect. As Buridan explains it, To each singular human part or power that has a different operation a different virtue must be attributed, determining it to the ultimate work of which they are capable. For instance, one is the virtue of the eye, another one that of the hand. But no virtue of a part or of a particular power [of the human being] should be called a virtue of the whole absolutely, except for the virtue of the most principal part or of the most principal power. However, if the whole does not have powers distinct from the singular powers of the parts, then there is no problem in attributing the virtue of the most principal part to the whole, for, as Aristotle says in the ninth book [of the Nicomachean Ethics], “[as in] the state [the sovereign] seems to be the most important thing, so it is with man and with any other composite whole.”35 Therefore, any one craft is a virtue, not of human beings as human beings, but belonging to the factive intellect, ordered to the object of its craft, just as the craft of building belongs to the building intellect, and likewise for [all] singular things. (QNE VI 8)36

 To wit: prudentia, intellectus, scientia, and sapientia. See Buridan QNE VI 1.  “Item virtus hominis attenditur secundum maximum opus et optimum quod homo potest, sed optimum opus quod homo potest non est circa factibilia, circa quae est ars, sed vel circa agibilia, vel circa speculabilia, cum circa obiectum nobilius debeat esse opus nobilius et melius.” 34  “Item virtus alicuius non debet attendi secundum eius partem inferiorem vel viliorem, sed vel secundum se totum, vel secundum partem nobiliorem et excellentiorem a qua totum maxime natum est nominari. Sed intellectus factivus est pars inferior quam intellectus activus vel speculativus.” 35  Aristotle, NE 1168b. 36  “Dicam igitur quod singulis partibus vel potentiis in homine habentibus alias et alias operationes attribuendae sunt aliae et aliae virtutes proprie determinantes eas ad ultima opera in quae possunt: alia enim est virtus oculi, alia manus. Sed nulla virtus partis vel potentiae particularis deberet dicit virtus totius simpliciter, nisi virtus partis seu potentiae principalissimae. Si tamen totum non habeat potentiam distinctam a potentiis singularibus partium, tunc non est incoveniens virtutem partis principalissimae toti simpliciter attribuere, quia sicut dicit Aristoteles nono huius ‘quemadmodum civitas principalissimum esse videtur, sic et homo et omnis alia congregatio.’ Igitur quaelibet ars est virtus, non hominis secundum quod homo, sed intellectus factivi in ordine ad objectum illius artis, ut ars domificatoria intellectus domificativi, et sic de singulis.”

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Indeed, Buridan acknowledges that we ought not to say that the virtuous dispositions which do not concern the whole human being but only particular parts (such as the eye or the hand) are habitus that make us good human beings simpliciter, except for when the part concerned is the main part, namely the contemplative intellect in the case of humans. Hence, because craft refers to an inferior or less worthy part of our soul, i.e., the factive intellect, it does qualify as an intellectual virtue, only not a virtue of a human being as a human being. When we say that craft is a virtue, it is thus not a virtue of the human being as a whole, but a virtue of the factive intellect, and although it is not a virtue of humans “secundum quod homo” (Buridan, QNE VI 8),37 it is still a virtue. This is a point where Buridan and Aquinas are at odds with one another. For Buridan, ars is somewhat a minor virtue because it is only a virtue of the factive intellect, and needs the aid of another virtue for it to count as a virtue of a human being qua human being. The virtues that have this supplementary role are either the moral virtues—i.e., the virtues pertaining to the appetitive part of the soul—or prudence, which is the intellectual virtue acting as the manager of moral virtues.38 For Buridan, thus, there is a link between craft and the appetite, albeit not a necessary or determining one, as he makes clear in his reply to the third objection, when he says that “craft results in the good of the internal work of the factive intellect, but does not perfectly determine the external work, nor its appetite, to be directed to the good absolutely. Rather, to do that it requires a virtue, as has been said” (QNE VI 8),39 and as will also be emphasized in Buridan’s response to the first objection, in Sect. 19.3.1 below. From Buridan’s point of view, although craft is a virtue of the internal work of the factive intellect (QNE VI 8),40 in order for it to be mainly associated with the agent’s actual production—i.e., with the external things made or produced—and for it to be an operative habitus, it must be able to guide the external work of the factive intellect and, thence, engage with the appetite. In this sense, the Picardian master’s thesis entails that there is a normative, moral aspect added to craft, one which is most evidently seen through the work of prudence.41 For Aquinas, on the other hand, craft and the appetite are in no way related. According to him, [craft] is nothing but “the right reason about certain works to be made.” And yet the good of these things depends, not on a human’s appetitive faculty being affected in this or that way, but on the goodness of the work done. For a craftsman, as such, is commendable, not for the

 See n. 31 above.  On the role of prudence as a manager of the appetitive virtues, see QNE VI 1. 39  “[…] ars reddit interius opus intellectus factivi bene se habens, sed non determinat perfecte opus exterius, nec ipsum appetitum ad simpliciter bene se habere, sed ad hoc indiget virtute ut dictum est.” 40  “[…] propter quod Aristoteles vult quod ars reddit opus intellectus factivi bonum et bene se habens.” 41  Much has been written on Buridan’s notion of prudence. Since summarizing it here would go beyond the scope of this paper, I refer the reader to Saarinen (2003) and Korolec (1973, esp. pp. 43–92). See also Buridan QNE VI 18–20. 37 38

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will with which he does a work, but for the quality of the work. Craft, therefore, properly speaking, is an operative habitus.42 (Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 57, a. 3, responsio; trans. 1911–1925)43

According to the Doctor Angelicus, craft does not at all pertain to the appetite. It has no morally normative scope. The virtue of craft resides simply in one’s intellectual relation to the factibilia and has no bearing beyond the factive intellect. Aquinas expands on his own view, reinforcing the strict separation between ars and the appetitive power: [Even if it is an operative or factive habitus, craft] has something in common with the speculative habitus: since the quality of the object considered by the latter is a matter of concern to them also, but not how the human appetite may be affected towards that object. For as long as the geometrician demonstrates the truth, it matters not how his appetitive faculty may be affected, whether they be joyful or angry: even as neither does this matter in a craftsman, as we have observed. And so craft has the nature of a virtue in the same way as the speculative habitus, in so far, to wit, as neither craft nor speculative habitus makes a good work as regards the use of the habitus, which is the property of a virtue that perfects the appetite, but only as regards the aptness to work well. (Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 57, a. 3, responsio; trans. 1911–1925, with minor changes; my italics)

For the Angelic Doctor, thus, craft is a factive habitus which has in common with the speculative habitus—and is therefore considered amongst them—the fact that it makes it easier for the factive intellect to act promptly regarding its objects, but that is independent of the practical or moral consideration about that habitus being used in an optimal manner, one which perfects the appetite. For Buridan, however, you can have it both ways: craft can be an intellectual virtue and it can be relevant to the appetite, guiding it.44 This is precisely why, for the Picardian arts master, craft and prudence have this peculiar status among intellectual virtues in that although they originate in the intellect, both are said to be habituated in a way that is similar to the virtues of the appetite.45 In this broader sense, i.e., considered in its appetitive

 Although Aquinas seems to conflate operative and factive habitus here in the ST (following the conflation of intellectus agens and intellectus factivus), in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics he takes into account the distinction between the two, namely that the operative intellect deals with moral choices whereas the factive intellect, properly concerned with ars and with the habitus factivus, in dealing with the making of things, represents the lowest part of the intellect. Cf. Aquinas, Ethicorum ad Nicomachum, lib. VI, lectio III (1882, pp. 857–858). 43  “[…] ars nihil aliud est quam ratio recta aliquorum operum faciendorum. Quorum tamen bonum non consistit in eo quod appetitus humanus aliquo modo se habet, sed in eo quod ipsum opus quod fit, in se bonum est. Non enim pertinet ad laudem artificis, inquantum artifex est, qua voluntate opus faciat; sed quale sit opus quod facit. Sic igitur ars, proprie loquendo, habitus operativus est.” 44  Through the external work of the factive intellect, which influences but does not perfectly determine the appetite. See n. 39 above. 45  Here, we must consider what Buridan says in QNE VI 1, where he divides virtues according to whether they are moral or intellectual: he argues that the former are virtues of the sensitive appetite requiring more practice and greater habituation; they are also more naturally inclinable or inclined to certain actions because they do not cognize. The latter, however, are virtues of the intellect and may require less repetition and habituation, as we sometimes promptly accept conclusions from a singular intellectual act. In the case of craft and prudence, however, unlike those of scientia, intel42

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b­ earing and habituated in the manner of appetitive virtues, craft as a virtue of humans qua humans does not merely require that one put to work a certain skillset that follows the canon of a particular mechanical art, for instance, but that this skillset be put to work with right reason taken as a measure of good work in general, and not merely good craftsmanship. With this moral aspect aside—which only applies to a broad consideration of craft, understood in conjunction with a moral virtue or prudence—when we consider craft alone, in its purest sense, it is not only to be counted amongst virtues in general but, more specifically, as noted, amongst intellectual virtues, because it originates in the human intellect. Thus, craft is a virtue of some sort, i.e., a virtue of the factive intellect, even if it cannot be stricto sensu labeled a virtue of human beings qua human beings.

19.3  Objections: Ars Does Not Seem to Be a Virtue Buridan’s arguments seem compelling; yet, as is standard in late medieval question commentaries he must deal with proposed objections to his views. He presents several reasons why craft does not seem to be a virtue. And although we now have a grasp of Buridan’s theses on the matter, we still ought to see how he can properly respond to the set of arguments presented in the beginning of his quaestio, which aim to deny that crafts are virtues.

19.3.1  Craft Is Not a Virtue; Craft Is Rather a Power First, It is argued that [craft] is not [a virtue], for in the second [book of the Nicomachean Ethics] it is said that “virtues are not affections nor powers”46 and in the ninth book of the Metaphysics, Aristotle says that “crafts are powers.”47 In fact, he says that “some of our

lectus and sapientia, more practice and repetition seem to be required, as if they behaved like moral virtues. From this question, see also, and especially, the third objection and Buridan’s reponse to it, as well as this excerpt from his respondeo: “Quintum directivum [operum humanorum] sunt virtutes morales per assuetudinem inclinantes appetitum ad exsequendum id quod ratione decretum est et ad expectandum semper in suis motibus et operationibus iudicium rationis, sic enim nature consonant omnes nostre operationes. Ergo si assuetudo aliqua concurrat ad habituum intellectualium generationem et confirmationem, tamen non ex assuetudine principaliter generantur, sed per experientiam vel doctrinam, propter quod habitus intellectuales non dicuntur morales. Sed contra, morales merito distinguuntur.” 46  Aristotle, NE 1105b–1106a. 47  Aristotle, Met. 1046b.

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powers are acquired through learning,”48 namely crafts [are acquired in this way]; therefore etc. (Buridan, QNE VI 8)49

According to the authority of Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics (1105b), there seem to be three sorts of things in our intellect: affections, powers, and habitus, and a thing cannot be two of these at the same time. Considering that in Metaphysics 1046b Aristotle is clear about the status of craft as a power, rather than an affection or a habitus, that means that craft is not a virtue, since virtue is a species of habitus—namely, a praiseworthy habitus or settled disposition for acting well.50 To this first objection, Buridan replies that It must be said that virtue is neither properly an affection nor a power, but is rather a disposition or habitus of a power determining that power to its best work. However, whenever the name “power” is used in a broad sense, extending it to the habitus or dispositions of true powers, then crafts as well as all virtues can be called powers, so indeed Aristotle says in the first book of the Rhetoric that “virtue is a power to acquire good things and a power to maintain and do many good things.”51 Or it must be said that, since virtues and vices are determinations of [our] powers directed toward opposite things, craft is called virtue insofar as it determines the factive intellect to judge truly about things that can be made. (QNE VI 8)52

A power, initially, can be directed to one of two opposites. But a craft always judges truly and well, so it is only directed toward truth and goodness. Because of that, craft cannot be considered a power, and it must rather be taken as a virtue. There is no such thing as a “bad craft” according to Buridan. Here, it may help to look at Aquinas’ consideration that […] when anyone endowed with a craft produces bad workmanship, this is not the work of that craft, in fact it is contrary to the craft: even as when a man lies, while knowing the truth, his words are not in accord with his knowledge, but contrary thereto. Wherefore, just as science has always a relation to good, as stated above, so it is with craft: and it is for this reason that it is called a virtue. And yet it falls short of being a perfect virtue, because it does not make its possessor to use it well; for which purpose something further is requisite,

 Aristotle, Met. 1046b.  “Arguitur quod non, quia secundo huius dicitur quod “virtutes nec sunt passiones nec potentiae” sed in nono Metaphysicae dicit Aristoteles ‘artes esse potentias.’ Dicit enim ‘aliquas potentiarum nobis esse acquisitas disciplinatu,’ scilicet artes. Ideo etc.” 50  See, e.g., Aristotle, Met. 1022b and NE 1103a. 51  Aristotle, Rhet. 1366a: “Virtue, it would seem, is a faculty of providing and preserving good things, a faculty productive of many and great benefits, in fact, of all things in all cases” (trans. 1926). 52  “Ad primam dicendum quod virtus nec est passio neque potentia proprie, sed est dispositio vel habitus potentiae determinans potentiam ad optimum eius opus. Quandoque tamen utimur large nomine potentiae, extendendo ipsum ad habitus vel dispositiones verarum potentiarum, et ita artes et omnes virtutes possunt dici potentiae, sic enim dicit Aristoteles primo Rhetoricae quod ‘virtus est potentia acquisitiva bonorum et servativa et potentia benefactiva multorum.’ Vel dicendum cum virtutes et maliciae sint determinationes potentiarum ad opposita se habentium, ars dicitur virtus inquantum determinat intellectum factivum ad vere iudicandum circa factibilia.” 48 49

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although there cannot be a good use without the craft. (ST I-II, q. 57, a. 3, ad 1; trans. 1911–1925, with minor changes; my italics)53

Although we have seen excerpts where Buridan seems to disagree with Aquinas, they concur on the fact that craft itself cannot be ordered to a bad end. As opposed to what the objection suggests, bad workmanship is contrary to craft,54 and not the result of craft as a power which got swayed in the bad direction. What Buridan explains is that in its internal operation (as a virtue) craft always judges well and truly about the factibilia. If that internal act of judgment results in an equally good and truthful external operation, this creates a truth-oriented settled disposition (habitus) of craft, i.e. once the intellect is directed and an act is accomplished, that act leaves a trace in the agent, disposing them to act in a similar manner in similar circumstances. That is, fundamentally, the work of a disposition, not that of a power. Now, insofar as it needs to judge truly internally, as has been said, and then put to work externally, Buridan will add in a way that is reminiscent of Aquinas’ excerpt above that craft requires the aid of a virtue: But because—with respect to the external work—craft is directed toward opposite things, since, just as a doctor can heal through medical craft, a doctor can also kill, for that reason, crafts like these are called powers and require another virtue determining them to operate well absolutely, namely prudence or a moral virtue. Therefore, Aristotle rightly says that “there is [such a thing as] a virtue of craft.”55 (QNE VI 8; my italics)56

What Buridan is qualifying is that it is only with respect to its external work that craft is directed to opposites. But it is with respect to its internal work that it is called a virtue. Two different things are being referenced here. Buridan can thus qualify Aristotle’s assertion (Met. 1046b) that crafts are powers: properly speaking, crafts are habitus; they can, however, be called powers, in a less strict sense insofar as, by themselves and with respect to the external work, they can sway toward the good and the bad—just as medicine can be used to heal or to kill. It is in that sense that they require, as suggested by Aquinas, an additional virtue guiding it in accordance with right reason. In a certain sense, then, one could say there is a virtue of craft insofar as once its external work is aided by prudence or one of the moral virtues, the agent becomes disposed to act in one way.

 “[…] cum aliquis habens artem operatur malum artificium, hoc non est opus artis, immo est contra artem, sicut etiam cum aliquis sciens verum mentitur, hoc quod dicit non est secundum scientiam, sed contra scientiam. Unde sicut scientia se habet semper ad bonum, ut dictum est, ita et ars, et secundum hoc dicitur virtus. In hoc tamen deficit a perfecta ratione virtutis, quia non facit ipsum bonum usum, sed ad hoc aliquid aliud requiritur, quamvis bonus usus sine arte esse non possit.” 54  See also Aristotle, NE 1140a. 55  Aristotle, NE 1140b. 56  “Sed quia in ordine ad opus exterius ars se habet ad opposita, quoniam sicut per artem medicinae medicus potest sanare, ita potest interficere, ideo artes ut sic vocantur potentiae et indigent ad simpliciter bene operandum alia virtute determinante eas, videlicet prudentia aut morali virtute; ideo enim bene dicit Aristoteles quod ‘artis erat virtus.’” 53

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19.3.2  C  raft Is Not a Virtue, Because Craft Is Sometimes Forbidden Another characteristic of virtues in general, according to the objections, besides their being strictly distinct from intellectual powers and affections, is that “no virtue should be forbidden, since virtue perfects the one who has it and makes their work good” (Buridan, QNE VI 8);57 for why would anyone want to impose a limitation on virtue and, therefore, impede the excellence in the appropriate performance of an activity? “Some crafts, however, are forbidden” (QNE VI 8),58 Buridan notes. Here, we can think of witchcraft or necromancy as sorts of crafts which were prohibited or strictly limited in the Middle Ages. If there are cases where we set limits to certain crafts or even forbid that they be exercised, and if virtues ought not to be curtailed or deliberately prohibited, this must be an indication that craft is not a virtue. To this second objection, Buridan replies that No craft is forbidden on account of their being virtues, namely on account of their being things determining the intellect to true judgment, but [craft is forbidden] because we can use it badly through our badness with regards to external operations. Therefore, crafts are not restrained on account of their being virtues, but rather on account of our badness, lest we be armed with them, for “injustice armed is at its harshest,” [as Aristotle says] in the first book of the Politics.59 (QNE VI 8)60

Restrictions are not imposed on crafts as virtues per se, for, as we have seen, there is no such thing as a “bad craft.” Limits are set, instead, to whatever might impel humans to act in a vicious or malicious manner. For instance, if we must set limits to the practice of medicine, it is not because the craft that is the virtue resulting from the practice of medicine might be bad, but rather because this practice, if misused in a practical, moral sense, might end up being harmful; and its habitus might end up leaving a trace on the individual, inclining them to doings that tend to evil rather than the good, creating, rather, a vice. What we are limiting, thus, when we impose restrictions on craft, is not the intellectual virtue itself, but rather the human behaviour, i.e., the external operation, which has a moral scope and which could lead to moral vice. Unlike the case of medicine which can be used for either good or evil, if mantic activities are understood, as they were in the late Middle Ages, not as activities in

 “Item nullae virtutes debent prohiberi, cum virtus habentem perficiat et opus eius bonum reddat […].” 58  “[…] sed aliquae artes prohibentur.” 59  Aristotle, Pol. 1253a. 60  “Ad aliam dicendum quod nullae artes prohibentur ea. ratione qua sunt virtutes, scilicet determinantes intellectum ad verum iudicium, sed ea. ratione qua possumus eis male uti quoad operationes exteriores per nostram maliciam. Non igitur propter se prohibentur, sed propter nostram maliciam, ne eis armemur. ‘Saevissima enim est iniustitia habens arma,’ primo Politicae.” 57

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which one should strive for excellence61 but rather as activities to be avoided at all costs (as, e.g., the 1277 condemnations suggest), this means that witchcraft is a craft in name only and not in its true sense of a virtue; thus, following what has been said in Sect. 19.3.1 above, just like necromancy, fortune-telling, incantations etc., it is actually contrary to craft and ought to be forbidden.

19.3.3  Craft Does Not Perfect the Activity Moreover, a third objection suggests, according to Aristotle, that “Each virtue, at any rate has a [twofold effect] on the thing to which it belongs: it perfects the one who has it and makes them do their work well,”62 [as is said] in the second book [of the Nicomachean Ethics]. But craft does not make it so that someone performs their function well; rather, it causes them to produce good work. In fact, through building a builder makes a house in itself good and firm, even though they sometimes act badly, for [they sometimes act] toward a bad end. It has been said in the preceding question that it is sometimes the case that a certain effect is had following craft, and [acting] against prudence. (Buridan, QNE VI 8)63

So, virtues dispose us to carry out our doings and makings in a good manner, meaning that virtues dispose us to two kinds of things: (i) to good action as an activity, and (ii) to good work as an effect of that activity. But craft does not seem to comply with the first kind of disposition. It seems to produce good work, in the sense that it can cause the final product of the work to be good—but that says nothing about the manner in which that work has been carried out. Craft, unlike virtue, whose value depends on the agent and on how an activity is brought about, is valued for its resulting work, the products of its making. We can use craft to aptly perform actions aiming at bad ends, or we can use craft to carry out actions while, for instance, disregarding the counsel of prudence or ignoring the recta ratio. That is why we call someone who builds firm and good houses a skilled housebuilder (i.e., skilled or virtuous with regards to the ars domificatoria) regardless, e.g., of their occasionally (or often) acting in a bad manner from a moral standpoint. In those cases, craft does not seem to dictate anything at all about how one acts or ought to act, or about how an activity is to be carried out; it only refers to the final product of the activity. We can also think of a skilled proponent of the ars oratoria, writing an undeserved encomium. The writing can be considered good in the sense that it conforms to the

 In fact, they are often conceived as activities meant to compel us and drive us to error when we would not otherwise err. 62  Aristotle, NE 1106a. 63  “Item ‘omnis virtus, cuius utique fuerit virtus, et illud bene habens perficit et opus eius bene reddit,’ secundo huius, sed ars non reddit opus bene, sed bonum: domificator enim per autem domificatoriam facit domum in se bonam et firmam, qui tamen aliquando male agit, quia ad malum finem. Dictum enim fuit in quaestione praecedenti quod aliquando contingit eundem effectum fieri secundum artem, et contra prudentiam.” 61

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rules of good prose composition (grammar, syntax, style etc.) and that it manages to leave its recipient with a sense of satisfaction, self-confidence and self-respect, albeit false. The work of the craft as an effect has thus been achieved; but we can still say the orator has acted badly, for flattery would hardly be considered a good thing, one to which we ought to aspire and be disposed to. In writing undeserved accolades, possibly for some ulterior benefit, the writer is likely acting against the counsel of prudence or against some moral virtue (to wit, justice and truthfulness). In that sense, craft does not seem to qualify as a virtue according to the conditions proposed by Aristotle (EN 1105a), namely that the agent act with knowledge, and deliberately choose the action for itself (and not, say, in light of some ulterior gain, nor by coercion), and that the action come from some sort of settled disposition. Buridan’s reply to the third objection has been explained in the previous section when, in opposition to Aquinas’ understanding of the role of craft in the intellect and its absolute separation from the appetite, we described Buridan’s conception of how craft operates in the internal and external work of the factive intellect, and how it can, through another virtue (and by affecting the appetite), be transferred over into external matter.64 What is worth adding here is that craft is necessary but not sufficient to direct us, as human beings, to the good absolutely, in that humans are not merely beings of intellection and activity, but also of production, in the sense that we all at least occasionally engage in makings and creations that involve craft, even if we are not all craftspeople.65 In order to do that, as the responses to the objections above have suggested, craft requires something else, another virtue, to actually guide it, externally, towards its good end. That is to say that if the external work perfectly conforms to the internal work of the factive intellect, a disposition could be formed in the agent, prompting them to act in a similar manner in similar circumstances. However, the external work does not necessarily conform to the internal work. In fact, there are cases where the external work is not fully virtuous even if it conforms to the internal work, such as the case of the construction worker building a concentration camp, and the rhetorician writing an undeserved encomium. In these examples, the internal work dictates how these things ought to be done, and the external work may or may not follow it. If it does, that is only a guarantee that the product of the action is technically good, i.e., respectively, that the building is sturdy and the speech indeed praises its addressee; but if the external work is not accompanied by the appropriate moral virtue (or by prudence), the act itself is not fully virtuous or fully good, as we can clearly see to be the case for the building of the concentration camp (whose end is an evil) and the writing of the undeserved encomium (whose end is an instance of injustice). This is because the ultimate good aimed at in the operations of a virtuous agent comes from their moral judgment, and not merely from the operations of the factive intellect. So, a certain understanding  For Buridan’s text, see n. 39 above.  Here, we must also recall that ars comprises not only building crafts but also medicine, rhetoric, dialectic, etc., as mentioned in Sect. 19.1 above. Hence, in our production of certain speeches and some kinds of reasoning we employ craft, even if we are not craftspeople in the contemporary sense of the term.

64 65

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of the moral good must accompany the agent’s reasoning in cases of virtuous actions—and this is the sense in which craft requires a virtue. However, craft is still a key, necessary virtue, in that no skilled work can be performed by another virtue alone, without craft.

19.3.4  Craft Does Not Make a Person Good Absolutely This is how we come to the fourth objection presented in Buridan’s quaestio: “A human virtue is that according to which a human being is called a good human being,”66 as is clear in the second book [of the Nicomachean Ethics], but a human being is not said to be good according to craft, for many craftsmen are rather bad human beings. (QNE VI 8)67

Beyond the case of the rhetorician, mentioned above, in Sect. 19.3.3, this is clearly observed in the case of skilled craftsmen and ingenious people, who are considered good in relation to the things they make and produce, but who are not necessarily seen as good people absolutely, or are even seen as bad people overall, for the way they act in general. It would seem that they might be good secundum quid, i.e., specifically pertaining to that one aspect in which they are skilled, but not good simpliciter, i.e. absolutely, concerning the whole of their being human. Thus, again, the craft or skillset by which we can be called good at something but not a good person in general does not seem to meet the threshold of virtue. Suffice it to think of Phidias and, on the one hand, his statue of Zeus at Olympia, considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and, on the other, his alleged theft of gold and supposed impiety.68 Although Phidias might be portrayed as an extremely skilled or virtuous sculptor, it does not seem to be the case that he would be called a virtuous human being. Thus, according to this line of reasoning, craft cannot qualify as a virtue. In his reply to the fourth argument, Buridan recalls that it has been “rightly show[n] that craft is not a virtue of human beings as human beings” (QNE VI 8),69 as we have seen in Sect. 19.2.2. Craft must then be understood merely as a virtue of the factive intellect and not as a virtue of humans qua humans.

 Aristotle, NE 1106a.  “Item ‘virtus hominis est secundum quam homo dicitur bonus homo’ ut patet secundo huius, sed homo non dicitur secundum artem bonus homo, quia multi artifices sunt valde mali homines.” 68  The accounts of the accusations made against Phidias and of their legitimacy vary, but here they are taken at face-value for the sake of the example. 69  “Alia ratio bene probat quod ars non est virtus hominis secundum quod homo.” 66 67

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19.3.5  I f There Is a “Virtue of Craft,” Craft Itself Is Not a Virtue Now, even if we were to grant, on account of what has been said above, that craft is not really a virtue, we could still say that there is a certain virtue of craft, in the sense that a virtue could accidentally belong to craft. That is to say, although the conditions as to what counts as a virtue proposed by Aristotle are not necessarily fulfilled by craft, they could be fulfilled in specific instances of craft, when a virtue is added to it. But then the last of the objections faced by Buridan surfaces, for although Aristotle says that there is a virtue of craft (NE 1140b), he also says that “there is no virtue of a virtue, for this would go on infinitely” (Buridan, QNE VI 8);70 thus, craft cannot qualify as a virtue. This objection tracks an objection found in Aquinas’ treatment of the issue: “[…] there is no virtue of a virtue. But ‘there is a virtue of craft,’ according to the Philosopher. Therefore, craft is not a virtue” (ST I-II, q. 57, a. 3 (objection 2); trans. 1911–1925, with minor changes). Since Aristotle claims that there cannot be a virtue of a virtue, as this would lead to an infinite regress, and since he also claims that there is indeed a virtue of craft, that is an indication that craft cannot be a virtue. In response to this final objection, the Picardian arts master says, recalling and expanding on a key aspect from his reply to the first objection, that There is no virtue of craft insofar as craft is itself a virtue, but rather [there is a virtue of craft] insofar as it determines the intellect to true judgment. But craft surely requires a virtue with respect to external work, so that it is ordered to the good end, for in this way it could be ordered to opposites, and [in this way] it has more the mode of a power than that of a virtue, as has been said. (QNE VI 8)71

As we have seen, with respect to its internal work, craft guides the intellect to judge truly. In that sense, it is a virtue; and because, indeed, there is no virtue of a virtue, in that same sense, one cannot say there is a virtue of craft. However, when its external work is concerned, craft needs another (moral or practical) virtue, so that it can be ordered to the good. With regards to its external work, in its being able to waver between opposites, craft acts as a power, as it were; and it is in that sense that one could say that there is a virtue of craft, as this would be somewhat tantamount to saying that there is a virtue of a power, which would not entail the infinite regress denounced by the objection. And thus we come to the end of the objections and responses to them.

 “Item virtutis non est virtus, quia sic procederetur in infinitum, sed artis est virtus, ut dicit Aristoteles.” 71  “Ad ultimam dicendum est quod artis non est virtus in quantum ipsa est virtus, sed in quantum determinat intellectum ad verum iudicium, sed bene indiget virtute quoad opus exterius, ad hoc quod ordinetur ad bonum finem, quia sic erat oppositorum, et magis habeat modum potentiae quam virtutis, ut dictum est.” 70

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19.4  Concluding Remarks: Ars Sive Scientia or Ars Sine Scientia? We now turn to the question as to why ars seems to have been overlooked in current scholarship on medieval philosophy. Part of the reason seems to be the very status craft had back in the Middle Ages. Indeed, all of the above having been established, we are left with an account that presents craft seemingly as a “threshold virtue,” as it were. Craft is seen as a lesser virtue for at least two reasons: it ranks lower because it is a practical virtue, not a theoretical or contemplative virtue; and between the two practical virtues—namely, prudence and craft—craft also seems to rank lower. The justification for this appears to be standardly understood by scholastics, and is expressed in Ockham’s (c. 1287–1347) thought: […] the craft of building a house does not dictate that the house should be built, but that the house ought to be so composed from wood and stone or arranged in such-and-such a way. And accordingly it gives direction insofar as, if the house is built, it directs the builder to build it in such-and-such a way. (Ockham, Rep 3.12, OT VI 420.7–10; trans. in Matthew Dee 2019; my emphasis)72

So, while prudence can answer the question regarding whether a certain thing ought to be done, craft can only guide how it ought to be done, once it is established by considerations beyond those of craft that it ought to be done.73 And it is thus also for Buridan, as we have seen: although craft is confirmed as an intellectual virtue by his reasoning, its role seems to be somewhat limited, as it is treated as a virtue of the factive intellect, and one which concerns the factibilia, which have a lesser standing than the objects of our practical deliberations and of theoretical contemplation. Now, why would anyone, especially medieval philosophers, go to all this trouble of saving the status of craft as a virtue? The fact that Aristotle had counted it among the five intellectual virtues does bear some weight on Buridan’s reasoning, just as it did for other scholastics—hence Aquinas’ similar defense of craft as an intellectual virtue. But what is at stake here is the coherence of the scheme of intellectual virtues, so this is not simply a one-off defense of craft as a virtue. While the principles admitted in speculative sciences are either (i) intellectually (self-)evident principles known by the intellect through its natural light when it considers the meaning of the terms (Buridan, QNE VI 11), i.e. the principle of non-contradiction and the principle of identity, or (ii) principles known by means of the experience of many principles that cannot be known otherwise, or yet (iii) principles that are known by a process of reasoning, by deducing conclusions from principles (QNE VI 1),74 the  “Exemplum: ars faciendi domum non dictat quod domus sit facienda, sed quod domus debet componi ex lignis et lapidibus sic vel sic dispositis. Et ita dirigit quatenus, si domus fiat, dirigit facientem ut sic vel sic faciat.” 73  Details of this distinction are found in Ockham’s division of practical knowledge into ostensive and dictative, as seen in: Ord., Prol. Q. 11 (OT I, 316.8–317.2). 74  “Alii autem dixerunt quod habitus intellectuales non generantur in nobis ex assuetudine, sed ex naturali inclinatione intellectus ad intelligibile quantum ad principia omnino prima, vel per expe72

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principles admitted in practical sciences are not self-evident, and they require sensible experience and memory (QNE VI 1 and 9). These non-self-evident principles pertain to craft, prudence, and also to some speculative sciences. But unlike speculative knowledge, which can rely solely on evident principles or necessarily deducible conclusions, craft must do some internal work of synthesis from experience. According to Aristotle (Met. 981a), experience is able to merge many particular perceptions into one experience and gain knowledge of individual cases, all while merely seeing these individual cases as such and not exceeding their particularity. As Schneider puts it: [Craft] recognizes, for the first time, proceeding from the similarities of observations [of particulars], what is generally inherent in them; thus, it is able to structure cases by kinds and has a λόγος—here, one may full well say “concept”—which allows for the subsumption of similar cases; even cases which are similar only in certain respects. It is only at this stage that the general is recognized in the many individuals, and the emancipation from immediate perception opens up the possibility of theorizing. (1994, p. 173; my translation)75

The properly contemplative, properly genetically intellectual side of ars, insofar as it pertains to the utmost rational part of the soul, is begotten from its ability to conceptualize (i.e., acquire a so-called universal) based on particular occurrences. Craft, thus, is not simply a routine repetition of an act, but entails a certain form of cognition, whence its status as an intellectual virtue: Aristotle speaks of a real “knowledge” in this context for the first time when he considers the “architects,” those who employ τέχνη [i.e., craft], to be comparatively “wiser” with regards to those craftspeople whose actions are based merely on experience; [the former] are called wiser not because they know how to approach a given case better—this is not always the case and it is often not the case when dealing with individual cases—but rather because they have the λόγος and know the causes. (Schneider 1994, p. 173; my translation)76

So even though craft may seem like a minor virtue amongst intellectual virtues—for it is concerned with factibilia and the factive intellect, rather than with all that is

rientiam quantum ad multa principia que aliter sciri non possunt, vel per doctrinam ratiocinativam deducendo conclusiones ex principiis […].” 75  “[…] sie erstmals von den Ähnlichkeiten der Beobachtungen ausgehend deren Allgemeines erkennt; damit vermag sie Fälle nach Arten zu gliedern und verfügt über einen λόγος—hier darf man wohl ‘Begriff’ sagen—der die Subsumption artgleicher, mithin bloss in bestimmter Hinsicht ähnlicher Fälle erlaubt. Erst auf dieser Stufe wird an dem vielen Einzelnen das Allgemeine erkannt, und mit der Emanzipation von der unmittelbar gegebenen Wahrnehmung wird die Möglichkeit der Theoriebildung eröffnet.” 76  “Auch von einem wirklichen ‘Wissen’ spricht Aristoteles in diesem Zusammenhang erstmals, wenn er die ‘Architekten,’ diejenigen, die über die τέχνη verfügen, gegenüber den Handwerkern, deren Tun bloß auf Erfahrung beruht, für vergleichweise ‘weiser’ hält; und nicht weil sie einen gegebenen Fall besser, erfolgreicher anzugehen wüßten, heißen sie ‘weiser’—das muß keineswegs immer so sein und ist es ausdrücklich gerade beim Handeln, das auf den Einzelfall zielt, oftmals nicht—, sondern weil sie über den λόγος verfügen und die Ursachen kennen.”

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proper to the practical and speculative intellects,77—it is still important insofar as it has something in common with speculative habits, as noted above. Although both Aquinas and Buridan deal with the question of whether craft is a virtue, Buridan’s treatment of this question merits consideration when compared to Aquinas’ mainly on two grounds. First, it is significantly longer than Aquinas’: while the Doctor Angelicus only raises three objections to his view in his quaestio, Buridan raises five and proceeds to offer us a sturdier thesis, which is capable of accounting for all of them. Furthermore, Buridan’s reply to the question includes more detail about this virtue and how it finds its seat in the intellect. Second and most importantly, the Picardian arts master also gives craft a broader scope than Aquinas does, allowing its influence to extend beyond the realm of the factive intellect to reach the appetite. Hence, a first answer to the question as to why craft seems to have been overlooked since the Middle Ages when compared to the other virtues emerges from the discussion above, and the weight it is given by different medieval philosophers: even if ars is a virtue, it is not a virtue of humans qua humans independent of other virtues; and, more importantly, because it concerns factibilia, and not contemplation, it ranks lower (or lowest, one might argue) within our philosophical hierarchy. But there is more to this discussion than meets the unsuspecting eye. That sapientia and prudentia both deserve special places on the podium of virtues seems uncontroversial due to their status as, respectively, a purely contemplative virtue, synonymous with philosophy itself, and the manager of moral virtues. Intellectus, in turn, being the habitus of first principles,78 is also warranted a prominent position. But what of ars and scientia? Why should the latter have precedence over the former for medieval philosophers?79 This sort of primacy of scientia over ars, against common belief, is not something that arises in modernity, nor with the advent of the Renaissance. The medieval discussion we find on what the terms refer to and how they were interpreted divergently in different contexts can actually be traced back to the Early Middle Ages (Włodek 1994, p. 57). Later, in the fourteenth century, we eventually come to Jean Mignot’s adage that “ars sine scientia nihil est” (apud Robert 2017, p. 35), which, despite not always applying particularly strongly to the philosophical discussion of that time (see Robert 2017), does count as a representation of how craft was generally perceived.80 As Lafleur notes (1994, p. 55), already in the thirteenth century,

 Here we must also recall that Buridan had paraphrased Aristotle, in the very beginning of QNE I 1, to remind us that “nobilis et excellens est virtutum speculatio adhuc multo nobilior et multo melior est virtutem operatio.” 78  Cf. Aristotle, NE 1141a6–8 and, e.g., Aquinas, ST I-II, q. 50 a. 4 and Buridan QNE VI 11. 79  This question concerning the separation and ranking of ars and scientia would also be particularly relevant to current philosophical debates, since technology and science, in our current understading of those terms, are not only ubiquitous but also seem to go hand in hand in our society, one necessarily depending on the other. 80  However, contra Robert (2017), I suggest that we not only consider what kind of treatment ars is given but how often it is taken as an object of study in the Middle Ages. 77

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e.g., in the Philosophica Disciplina of 1245 written by an anonymous Parisian arts master, the frequency of use of “ars” and “scientia” carried some weight. Whereas the latter is found recurrently throughout that work, the former is seldom present, except in set phrases, serving mainly two purposes: in one sense, such as in the expression “ars dicendi,” it connotes a weaker epistemological status than scientia; in another, when used in expressions such as “artes liberales,” it is supposed to denote more rigour (especially once physics, metaphysics and poetics were added to the liberal arts), which would therefore legitimize the role of the magister artium in the university. Just as it may seem obvious to us, albeit merely intuitively—and perhaps unjustifiably so—that craft and (scientific) knowledge are not the same thing, this distinction also did not seem to be a particularly tricky one for Buridan either, for he only dedicates a short section to it: One could raise a question about how knowledge (scientia) will be able to differ from craft (ars) and prudence (prudentia), when knowledge is allowed to be about contingent things, just as craft and prudence? I reply that although knowledge deals with external contingent things, yet in another way it is also concerned with non-contingent conclusions and propositions and things […]. And craft and prudence are about contingent conclusions and from contingent propositions, namely those which could be otherwise, or others which could be false. The physician concludes that this patient must not drink tomorrow, and this conclusion turns out to be false. Therefore, he will conclude the opposite, and will give him wine because of the variety of the matter and of the circumstances of the singular, which the craftsperson and the prudent person ought to consider, but not the knowledgeable person and the wise person. (QNE VI 6)81

We can see that this issue concerning the distinction between ars and scientia emerges in the sixth question of the QNE, two questions prior to the one concerning ars as an intellectual virtue. Although scientia may deal with contingent things, it is not necessary that it do. The artes—and also prudentia, for that matter—necessarily deal with contingents. Thus, ars concerns lesser things in the hierarchy of beings, because it is about less difficult, more readily accessible things than those dealt with by scientia, intellectus and sapientia (which are based on principles). Nevertheless, ars is actually concerned with a wider array of things considered in light of general guidelines, and a thoroughly specific account of it and all of the contingent factibilia and facienda it entails is impossible to give. This could be one of the reasons why relatively little attention is given to craft as an intellectual virtue, and only a cursory treatment of it seems to suffice for the purposes of the QNE.

81  “Sed adhuc aliquis poterit dubitare, quomodo scientia poterit ab arte et prudentia differe, cum ipsa concedatur versari circa res contingentes, sicut ars et prudentia? Respondeo quod licet scientia sit de rebus extra contingentibus, est tamen de conclusionibus et propositionibus non contingentibus aliter se habere … Ars autem et prudentia sunt de conclusionibus contingentibus et ex propositionibus contingentibus, scilicet quas contingit alibi, vel alias esse falsas. Concludit enim medicus modo quod iste infirmus non debet bibere cras, haec conclusio erit falsa. Ideo concludet oppositum, et dabit ei vinum propter varietatem materiae et circumstantiarum singularium quas oportet considerare artificem et prudentem, non autem scientem et sapientem.”

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Thus, late medieval philosophers appear to have had at least two reasons to allot less scholarly effort and/or fewer quaestiones to craft as compared to the other intellectual virtues. First, craft is considered a lower virtue because of its scope, dealing with the most mundane things of which humans are capable (i.e., production), which are situated at the polar opposite of the divine things to which we ought to aspire in our quest for eudaimonia (the ultimate aim of the Ethics). Second, precisely because those mundane things are, by definition, contingent, the scope of craft is also infinitely wide and complicated, for even things which appear similar can be contingently unique, which indicates that it would be impossible for any philosopher to provide an exhaustive account of the virtue craft. And, even if such an endeavour were possible, it would be a gargantuan task to undertake on behalf of such an “inferior” virtue. While ars might still need a suitable rehabilitation by looking at other philosophers’ accounts of it so that its role in the “pantheon of virtues” can be properly restored, the examination above has hopefully shown that this subject is worth pursuing—if not for itself, then at least insofar as it may help give us a broader understanding of late medieval virtue theory, and possibly even enlighten our current understanding of the relationship between craft and (scientific) knowledge as they pertain to our development and use of technology and how each of them is or ought to be connected in any way to the good, be it in an epistemic or moral sense. Acknowledgements  This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada through professor Mélissa Thériault, from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. I would like to thank the reviewers of this paper for their insightful comments and for their efforts toward improving my manuscript.

References Manuscript Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Urb. lat. 198.

Primary Sources Albert the Great. (n.d.). Commentary on metaphysics, Book VI, Tractatus i. Retrieved from http:// www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Albertus_Magnus/Commentary_on_Metaphysics/ Book_VI/Tractatus_i Aristotle. (1924). Metaphysics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Clarendon Press. Aristotle. (1926). The art of rhetoric (J. H. Freese, Trans.). Harvard University Press. Aristotle. (1935). The Eudemian ethics (H. Rackham, Trans.). In The Athenian constitution. The Eudemian ethics. On virtues and vices. Harvard University Press.

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Aristotle. (1984a). Nichomachean ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press. Aristotle. (1984b). Politics (B. Jowett, Trans.). In J. Barnes (Ed.), The complete works of Aristotle (Vol. 2). Princeton University Press. Aquinas, T. (1882). Excerpta philosophica (P. Carbonel, Ed.). In Divi Thomae Aquinatis Excerpta philosophica. Tomus 2, Deus, homo, ethica. Frères Seguin/Victor Lecoffre/Henry Trembley. Aquinas, T. (1911–1925). Summa theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.). Benziger Brothers. Aquinas, T. (1968). On the unity of the intellect against the Averroists (B.  H. Zedler, Trans.). Marquette University Press. Buridan, J. (1513). Questiones Joannis Buridani super decem libros ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum. Minerva. Eustratius Metropolitanus Nicaeae. (1973). Enarratio in primum Aristotelis Moralium ad Nicomachum (H. P. F. Mercken, Ed.). In The Greek commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. E. J. Brill. Ockham, W. (1967–1988). Opera philosophica et theologica (G. Gál et al., Eds.). The Franciscan Institute. Radulphus Brito. (2008). Qvestiones super librvm ethicorvm Aristotelis (I. Costa, Ed.). In I. Costa, Le questiones di Radulfo Brito sull’ « Ethica Nicomachea » (pp. 169–562). Brepols.

Secondary Sources Biard, J. (2012). Science et nature: La théorie buridanienne du savoir. Vrin. Chandelier, J., Verna, C., & Weill-Parot, N. (Eds.). (2017). Science et technique au Moyen Âge (XIIe–XVe siècles). Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Craemer-Ruegenberg, I., & Speer, A. (Eds.). (1994). Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter. De Gruyter. Dee, M. (2019). William of Ockham’s divine command theory [Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida]. Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7776 Faucher, N., & Roques, M. (Eds.). (2018). The ontology, psychology and axiology of habits (habitus) in medieval philosophy. Springer. Hibbs, T.  S. (2001). Virtue’s splendor: Wisdom, prudence, and the human good. Fordham University Press. Kilcullen, J. (1996/1999). John Buridan, Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, book 10: Collation of early edition and manuscripts. Retrieved from http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/ Korolec, J. B. (1973). Filozofia moralna Jana Burydana. Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich. Lafleur, C. (1994). Scientia et ars dans les introductions à la philosophie des maîtres ès arts de l’Université de Paris au XIIIe siècle. In I. Craemer-Ruegenberg & A. Speer (Eds.), Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (pp. 45–65). De Gruyter. Pasnau, R. (2010). Medieval social epistemology: Scientia for mere mortals. Episteme, 7(1), 23–41. Robert, A. (2017). Science, art et prudence à la fin du Moyen Âge (XIIIe–XIVe siècle). In J. Chandelier, C. Verna, & N. Weill-Parot (Eds.), Science et technique au Moyen Âge (XIIe–XVe siècle) (pp. 35–63). Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Saarinen, R. (2003). The parts of prudence: Buridan, Odonis, Aquinas. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review/Revue Canadienne de Philosophie, 42(4), 749–766. Saarinen, R. (2006). Wisdom as intellectual virtue: Aquinas, Odonis and Buridan. In V. Hirvonen, T. J. Holopainen, & M. Tuominen (Eds.), Mind and modality: Studies in the history of philosophy in honour of Simo Knuuttila. Brill.

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Schneider, N. (1994). Experientia – ars – scientia – sapientia. Zu Weisen und Arten des Wissens im Anschluß an Aristoteles und Thomas von Aquin. In I.  Craemer-Ruegenberg & A.  Speer (Eds.), Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (pp. 171–188). De Gruyter. Włodek, Z. (1994). L’art et la science dans les commentaires médiévaux cracoviens sur la Métaphysique d’Aristote. In I. Craemer-Ruegenberg & A. Speer (Eds.), Scientia und ars im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (pp. 257–265). De Gruyter. Zavattero, I. (2007). Moral and intellectual virtues in the earliest Latin commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics. In I. P. Bejczy (Ed.), Virtue ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1200–1500. Brill. Aline Medeiros Ramos  is an instructor (chargée de cours) in philosophy at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, in Canada. She is also a PhD candidate in philosophy at the Université du Québec à Montréal, currently writing her dissertation under the supervision of Claude Panaccio on the epistemic virtues according to John Buridan. In addition to specializing in medieval philosophy focusing on the Late Middle Ages, she is also generally interested in ethics and the history of philosophy and, in particular, the history of ethics and virtue theory.

Chapter 20

William Ockham on Craft: Knowing How to Build Houses on the Canadian Shield Jenny Pelletier

Abstract  Towards the end of Aline Medeiros Ramos’s study of John Buridan on craft as an intellectual virtue, she mentions William Ockham in passing and points towards his conception of craft. In this paper, I take up her implicit invitation to explore that conception. I begin by reconstructing Ockham’s notion of craft, and then proceed to discuss three consequences of that conception: (1) the moral neutrality of craft, (2) the role of deliberation in craftwork, and (3) the epistemic status of craft and the craftworker. I conclude by summarizing a number of issues that Buridan, according to Medeiros Ramos, finds it important to discuss, and which are noticeably absent from Ockham’s considerations. Keywords  Craft · Ockham · Practical cognition · Theoretical cognition · Science · Morality · Deliberation · Experience

20.1  Introduction In the conclusion of her paper, Medeiros Ramos quotes a passage from William Ockham’s Reportatio 3, q. 12 to support the view that scholastics tended to hold craft in relatively low estimation (following Medeiros Ramos, I will use ‘craft’ for ‘ars’). She writes: “Craft is seen as a lesser virtue for at least two reasons: it ranks lower because it is a practical virtue, not a theoretical or contemplative virtue; and between the two practical virtues—namely, prudence and craft—craft also seems to rank lower” (Sect. 19.4). In her reading, Ockham exhibits the scholastic bias against craft in favour of prudence. While such bias maintains the inferiority of craft on the grounds that, in the first instance, it is practical rather than theoretical, a brief survey

J. Pelletier (*) Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_20

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of Ockham’s relatively few discussions of craft belies such an assessment—or at least nuances it, for Ockham concedes that practical bodies of knowledge, which include craft, can contain theoretical truths. Craft is not purely non-theoretical, despite the fact that it is categorized as practical rather than theoretical. A generation before John Buridan, Ockham (c. 1287–1347) was a pivotal figure in the philosophical development of the fourteenth century, and exercised a strong and well-documented influence on John Buridan. Consequently, he is a natural candidate to compare with Buridan on virtually any philosophical issue, including craft in this instance. To be sure, when it comes to the intellectual virtues Ockham is chiefly interested in knowledge (scientia), and specifically scientific knowledge, as well as prudence (prudentia). The remaining three intellectual virtues—wisdom (sapientia), understanding (intellectus), and craft (ars)—are little discussed in comparison. Had Ockham commented on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics or the Metaphysics, he might have dealt with the question of craft in greater detail; unfortunately, he did not. Given Ockham’s indisputable interest in knowledge, it is unsurprising that in the foreword to the Summula Philosophiae Naturalis (1319–1321)—and then more extensively in the prologue to his Sentences commentary, known as the Ordinatio (1317–1318)1—most of his discussion on craft arises in connection with a distinction between theoretical and practical cognition. While Ockham occasionally refers to practical or theoretical knowledge (that is, scientia), the term he prefers is ‘cognition’ (notitia). I will do the same for the sake of precision, despite the fact that ‘knowledge’ is often the more instinctive choice. For Ockham, craft is a practical cognition or set of practical cognitions by which the craftworker grasps the various propositions that inform her as to how to go about making a product.2 The cognitions that constitute craft itself are (1) practical, insofar as they direct those human acts that are necessary for the making of a product; and (2) informative, insofar as they instruct the craftworker in how to make her product (though not when and where). The first condition differentiates craft from theoretical cognition while the second condition differentiates craft from prudence. The examples of crafts that we find in Ockham’s corpus are logic, grammar, rhetoric, building, music, agriculture, and medicine. Having the relevant craft shows the student of logic how to syllogize, the student of grammar how to conjugate verbs, the builder how to construct a house, etc. It is evident why one would consider crafts

 For these dates, I am relying on those provided in the first chapter of Spade (1999).  The topic of craft has been discussed to some extent in the literature, much of which is devoted to Ockham’s moral theory (i.e., Holopainen 1991, Freppert 1988, Kobusch 1994, and Müller 2000) and the basic concepts involved, such as the distinction between practical and theoretical cognition (on this see also Maurer 1999, pp. 145–148), practical activity, prudence (also discussed in Osborne 2014). Of these, Holopainen and Kobusch discuss craft in some detail, the latter arguing that Ockham stands as a decisive figure in the history of ethics from Aristotle to Kant. I am indebted to their scholarship, and I hope that the present contribution builds on what they have already established. In general, however, Medeiros Ramos’s observations about the state of the scholarship on craft in late medieval philosophy apply to Ockham as well; craft has not been thematized to a great degree, whereas his account of knowledge and prudence most certainly have. 1 2

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to be bodies of practical knowledge, and Ockham’s account allows for them to be more or less theoretical. After reconstructing Ockham’s conception of craft in Sect. 20.2, I explore in Sect. 20.3 three consequences of this reconstruction: (20.3.1) craft is intrinsically morally neutral; (20.3.2) the role of deliberation is ambiguous in craftwork; and (20.3.3) the epistemic status of craft and the basis upon which the craftworker grasps the principles of her craft. Here, I suggest that while Ockham himself addresses the distinction made by Aristotle in Metaphysics I 1 between the craftworker and someone who merely has experience, for Ockham the craftworker can draw upon her own experience as well as the findings of the broader scientific and technical community in order to make her product.

20.2  Craft Is a Practical, Informative Cognition In the Reportatio 3, q. 12 passage that Medeiros Ramos cites, Ockham is responding to the objection that any practical cognition is prudence. Ockham denies this by distinguishing between practical and “above all scientific” (maxime scientifica) practical cognition that is about what is universal and necessary from practical cognition that is about the particular things that we can do (Reportatio 3, q. 12, OTh. VI 419–420, ll. 15–2). Ockham is introducing two kinds of practical cognition: (1)  practical cognition that includes our grasp of certain universal and necessary truths, and which he explicitly identifies as craft; (2) practical cognition that arises on the basis of experience and tells us how we should act in a given situation, and this he identifies as prudence.3 Already, we see that Ockham does not limit practical cognition to the grasp of what we ought to do in a particular situation. He extends practical cognition to include scientific cognitions that are at least scientific in the sense that they are cognitions of some universal and necessary truths. This raises the question as to what is distinctive about practical cognition; or rather, what is it that distinguishes practical cognition from theoretical cognition? Since craft will turn out to be a kind of practical cognition, we should start with Ockham’s view of practical cognition in general before turning to craft as a kind of practical cognition. The principal means by which Ockham differentiates practical and theoretical cognition is on the basis of their objects.4 This means, for Ockham, quite precisely the kind of conclusions that they cognize. He writes:

3  Ockham presents four ways of understanding prudence. For discussion, see Freppert (1988, chapter 2), Müller (2000, pp. 154–161), and more recently Osborne (2014, pp. 95–96). 4  In the Ordinatio prologue, q. 11, Ockham discusses whether practical and theoretical cognition are differentiated by their ends, and his conclusion is that they are but not “without qualifications,” as Holopainen notes (1991, p. 43). See Holopainen (1991, pp. 39–44) and Osborne (2014, p. 91). Talk of ends is complicated in Ockham. For the purposes of this paper, I will set aside his discussion of ends both in the context of the distinction between theoretical and practical cognition as

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[I]n a conclusion that is known by means of a theoretical cognition nothing is posited that we can do, nor is something that we can do conveyed, because a theoretical cognition is not about our works. However, in a conclusion that is known by means of a practical cognition something that we can do is posited, or something we can do is conveyed by the terms of that conclusion, because a practical cognition is about our works, that is, it is about what signifies our works.5

The objects of practical cognitions are propositions of whose terms at least one signifies what we can do. Ockham presents a uniform account of the objects of practical and theoretical cognition according to which the objects of both are conclusions, that is to say propositions. In the case of theoretical knowledge—scientific and demonstrative knowledge—the objects in question are the conclusions of demonstrative syllogisms.6 Imprecisely, we may say that the things that the terms of these conclusions signify are the objects of scientific knowledge, but it is less ambiguous to use “referent” here. In contrast to the objects of theoretical cognition, the objects of practical cognition are propositions that direct us towards something that we can do, and this is some practical activity that is signified by one of its terms. It is in this sense alone that a term or its referent, namely the practical activity itself, is a partial object of practical cognition (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 315, ll. 13–16). For instance, the proposition “one ought to till the soil before sowing grain” is the object of a practical cognition that would belong to the craft of agriculture. The term ‘to till the soil before sowing grain’ signifies something that we can do—to wit, tilling the soil—and this constitutes a part of the object of the farmer’s cognition. The cognition by which the farmer grasps this proposition is more directive than the cognition she would have of tilling soil or of the term ‘to till soil before sowing grain.’ Ockham holds that whole complexes are more directive, and thus more normative, than the cognition of any one of their terms taken independently (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 315, ll. 13–19). Ockham uses the terms that I have translated as “our works,” “what we can do,” and “practical activity” (praxis)7 somewhat interchangeably. What do these terms

well as in the case of craft specifically, which he does address intermittently in his Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis. 5  Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 315, ll. 3–13: “Quartum, scilicet quod istae notitiae distinguuntur per conclusiones scitas tamquam per propria sibi, ita scilicet quod necessario est alia conclusio scita notitia practica et alia scita notitia speculativa, patet: quia in illa conclusione quae scitur notitia speculativa nihil ponitur operabile a nobis, nec aliquid importans operabile a nobis, cum notitia speculativa non sit de operibus nostris. In illa autem conclusione quae scitur notitia practica ponitur aliquid operabile a nobis vel aliquid importans operabile a nobis, cum practica sit de operibus nostris, hoc est de his quae significant opera nostra. Igitur alia est conclusio scita una scientia et alia.” Cf. Summula, Praeambula, OPh. VI 147, ll. 255–259. For discussion on this point and analysis of the same passages, see Holopainen (1991, pp. 45–47). Unless otherwise stated, all references are to Ockham’s works and all translations are my own. 6  For further discussion and references on the objects of scientific knowledge, see Pelletier (2013, p. 41). 7  I thank Eric Hagedorn for suggesting this translation of ‘praxis’ to me.

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refer to? Ockham differentiates between four senses of practical activity, only one of which is relevant to our purposes.8 In this sense, Ockham explains that practical activity is any operation—any human act—that exists within our power. This ­comprises operations of the intellect, operations of the will, and exterior operations. I take it that “exterior operations” in this instance refers to operations that are brought about by powers other than the powers of the rational soul, namely intellect and will which bring about intellective and volitional operations respectively, and could include the acts of the sensory powers and the body.9 Ockham clarifies, however, that practical activity primarily means volitional acts because intellective and exterior operations are considered instances of practical activity insofar as they fall under the control of the will and, on these grounds, are considered to be within our power (see Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 10, OTh. I, 288, ll. 22–23 and later at 292, ll. 13–19, and Summula, Praeambula, OPh. VI, 147, ll. 241–247). How is this relevant for craft? In the Summula foreword, Ockham writes that practical cognition “is about our works, both [1] operations that are within our power as well as [2] operations that are carried out by us, as are a house and other mechanical works.”10 Ockham seems to be differentiating between, on the one hand, practical cognitions by which we are directed towards the performance of human operations tout court—namely the intellective, volitional, and exterior acts that constitute practical activity itself as delineated above—and, on the other hand, practical cognitions by which we are directed towards the performance of the various human operations that ultimately produce something outside of ourselves. On (1) the referent of a term occurring in the propositional object of a practical cognition is a human operation or set of operations. On (2) the referent would be the product that the agent makes outside of herself by way of engaging in a human operation or set of operations. This distinction is more explicit in the Ordinatio prologue, where Ockham states that different crafts have different “objects” taken non-technically in this passage for the referents of the terms of the propositional objects of practical cognitions. Crafts like logic, grammar, and rhetoric have as their objects in this imprecise sense practical activity itself. But other crafts like the craft of building have as their objects the products that the craftworker makes outside of themselves, and this by means of effectuating various operations interior and exterior to the craftworker’s rational soul (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 317, ll. 2–5; cf. Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 12, OTh. I, 337–338, ll. 20–8). In this regard, the two map

8  See Holopainen (1991, pp. 65–72) and Freppert (1988, chapter 2). Osborne discusses Ockham’s conception of praxis in connection to Scotus’s (2014, pp. 92–93). The sense I discuss is the third. The fourth is any operation “that is elicited in conformity with a dictate of reason and a choice of the will” (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 10, OTh. I, 289, ll. 8–9) and this is very specifically an operation that is the result of a process of deliberation. 9  On the distinction between interior and exterior acts in Ockham’s moral psychology, see Osborne (2007). 10  Summula, Praeambula, OPh. VI, 147, ll. 252–255: “Notitia autem practica est notitia quae est de operibus nostris, accipiendo opera nostra tam pro operationibus quae sunt in nostra potestate quam pro operationibus quae sunt operatae a nobis, sicut sunt domus et alia opera mechanica.”

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onto the distinction between doing and making, where doing refers to operations that are interior and exterior to the rational soul of the agent but does not have as its partial object what the agent can produce outside of herself. In contrast, making does.11 Crafts are not merely practical cognitions of propositions that direct human acts. They are informative (ostensive) rather than dictative (dictative), which is how craft is differentiated from prudence.12 Prudence is a dictative practical cognition that dictates that one ought to perform some work in a concrete situation. In contrast, an informative practical cognition indicates how some work is to be brought about on the condition that the agent in question has decided that she should perform that work in a concrete situation (hence the link to Kant’s hypothetical imperative made by some modern commentators; see n. 12). In Ockham’s view, logic, grammar, and building merely instruct the student in how to go about syllogizing, conjugating, or building; they do not dictate that a student ought to syllogize, conjugate amare, or build a house. Ockham explains that by virtue of an informative practical cognition, “if the intellect dictates that something ought to be made and the will wills [it], then [the agent] correctly sets to work at once.”13 It is by virtue of possessing and acting upon the habit of prudence that the intellect dictates, for instance, that a house ought to be built in such a place at such a time, which the will may or may not then choose to act upon. The craft of building, however, merely informs the builder as to how to construct a house, i.e. that houses are constructed from wood and stone, have foundations and walls and roofs, and so on and so forth; if a builder chooses to build a house, she will know how to go about constructing house by virtue of having the practical informative cognition(s) that we call the craft of building. However, the craft of building “does not dictate that a house should be built, nor when [a house] should be built […].”14

 I owe this terminology to Richard Parry’s (2020) discussion of Aristotle on technê and epistêmê. Parry distinguishes between doing (praxis) and making (poiêsis). 12  This distinction has been discussed in the literature. See Holopainen (1991, p. 50 and following), Freppert (1988, chapter 2), Osborne (2014, pp. 100–102), and Kobusch (1994, pp. 506–507). Both Holopainen and Kobusch connect this distinction with Kant’s hypothetical vs. categorical imperative. 13  Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 316, ll. 19–21: “[…] virtute cuius notitiae, si intellectus dictet illud esse faciendum et voluntas velit, statim potest recte operari.” 14  Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 316, ll. 21–24: “Sicut ars aedificatoria ostendit quod domus componitur ex lignis et lapidibus et ex fundamento tali et talibus parietibus et tali tecto, et sic de aliis, et non dictat quod domus est facienda nec quando est facienda […]”. 11

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20.3  Some Consequences of Ockham’s Conception of Craft 20.3.1  Craft Is Morally Neutral Ockham’s hard and fast distinction between dictative and informative practical cognition, where craft is clearly identified with the latter while prudence and moral knowledge with the former, suggests that Ockham’s conception of craft is morally neutral. In this regard, he is apparently more in line with Aquinas than Buridan as Medeiros Ramos reads these two in her contribution. On the basis of the passages that I have discussed here, this certainly seems the plausible conclusion to draw. Craft itself is indeed a purely informative practical cognition (Ockham insists upon the qualifier ‘tantum’), and thus surely implies that being a “good” craftworker is not a moral affair. I see no reason, however, to reject the claim that a craftworker would be subject to moral evaluation as a moral agent or—to use Medeiros Ramos’s reading of Buridan—as a human being. As any moral agent, a craftworker presumably has intentions that are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy, and this may well be in connection to the making of their product. Why a builder chooses to build a particular house at a particular time may well be morally appraisable, although any such evaluation is entirely separate from the successful exercise of her craft. Recall that Ockham writes, “if the intellect dictates that something ought to be made and the will wills [it], then [the agent] correctly sets to work at once” (my italics). While it may be true that the instructions guiding the craftworker in the making of her product are morally neutral, she initially decides to set about making her product in a concrete situation, and this, I take it, is a decision that could be morally appraisable. It is certainly a choice, and it may or may not conform to right reason, or prudence. Indeed, he explicitly says so: “logic, rhetoric, grammar, and the mechanical crafts are practical without qualification, and yet they are not dictative. A dictate concerning the exercise of these practical cognitions does not belong to these crafts but to prudence.”15 The example of a builder constructing a concentration camp is surely relevant here, and the builder who decides to build a concentration camp is not exempt from moral culpability, irrespective of how well the camp buildings are made.

 Ordinatio, d. 35, OTh. IV, 509–510 ll. 19–2: “[…] logica, rhetorica, grammatica et artes mechanicae sunt simpliciter practicae, et tamen non sunt dictativae. Sed dictamen de exercitio istarum notitiarum practicarum non pertinet ad istas artes, sed ad prudentiam pertinet.” I was made aware of this passage thanks to Müller (2000, p. 153).

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20.3.2  The Role of Deliberation in Craftwork Interestingly, the very same claim, “if the intellect dictates that something ought to be made and the will wills [it], then [the agent] correctly sets to work at once,” can be used to argue that the craftworker does not deliberate as to how to set about making her product. That is, she does not deliberate between the various means by which she might best accomplish her goal. Holopainen writes that craft is “[a] pre-­ designed pattern of action [that] eliminates the need to deliberate the means of obtaining the goal […]”, and more precisely still that “[…] ostensive knowledge [i.e., craft] is, then prepared and already deliberated knowledge (instruction) concerning the right or best way of obtaining the goal” (Holopainen 1991, p. 51). This reading is borne out by an aside in the Ordinatio prologue where Ockham explains what must occur in order for the craftworker to set about making her product. He is responding to Scotus’s claim that a craft, like moral knowledge, is “quasiremote in giving direction” whereas prudence is “proximate.”16 Ockham disagrees that craft lies at a remove from immediately directing the craftworker’s acts. Rather, Ockham identifies two necessary conditions that the craftworker must meet in order to set about making her product: (1) the cognition of universal propositions that are informative and directive with regard to how the craftworker ought to go about making her product, and (2) the cognition of various singular things in the concrete situation at hand and in response to which the craftworker will make her product.17 The first condition, the set of universal propositions that will direct her in the making of her product, are about, say, the construction of houses in general. These propositions, while being universal, nevertheless seem to include further instructions that take into account a range of possible particular circumstances that might obtain in the concrete situation at hand in which the builder plans to construct a particular house. Ockham writes, “someone who has a universal proposition that this act ought to be performed at such a time and in such a place and so on for other circumstances need only be shown something having such circumstances and she will immediately be able to set about working by virtue of that proposition” (see the previous note for the Latin text; here, I have placed in italics the content of the universal proposition, which includes this range of possible circumstances relevant for the construction of any house). The second condition, then, is simply the craftworker’s cognition of the very particular circumstances that do in fact obtain in that concrete situation. So, for instance, the builder must cognize general propositions  See Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 317, ll. 14–22, where Ockham cites from Scotus’s Ordinatio I, Prol. p. 5, qq. 1–2, n. 351, Vaticana, I, 228. I am relying on the translation provided by Thomas Williams (2017, p. 39). 17  Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 318, ll. 1–9: “Sed istud quantum ad hoc quod dicit quod habitus talis non est proximus ad dirigendum, non videtur verum. […] habens propositionem universalem quod sic est agendum pro tali loco et tali tempore et sic secundum alias circumstantias, non oportet nisi quod ostendatur aliquid habens tales condiciones et statim virtute propositionis universalis poterit operari.” For a very clear statement of the same two conditions that relies on the example of building houses, also see Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 12, OTh. I, 356–357, ll. 22–6. 16

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such as “the foundations of a house are best dug deep into the earth.” If she is building a house in northern Ontario, she ought to avoid beginning construction in the winter when the ground is frozen and trenches cannot be easily dug for the foundations. Alternatively, if she is building a house on the granite substrate of Canadian Shield, then she will need to employ an entirely different approach, one that will allow for the construction to be firmly anchored to the bedrock. The point is that the builder does not engage in a process of deliberation about how best to build her house. She cognizes the particular circumstances of the concrete situation in which she will build her house, and then automatically, as it were, is able to act on the propositions about constructing houses in general that she has grasped. The difficulty with this reading, however, is that Ockham also clearly does hold that a craftworker deliberates. Moreover, one can easily imagine cases in which a craftworker must engage in a process about deliberation in order to determine which is the best means to make her product. Imagine a builder who has never built a house on granite but finds herself faced with building a cottage on the shore of Georgian Bay in Ontario, where digging foundation footings will not work. She will have to deliberate about the different means that she will have at her disposal to secure her cottage to the granite bedrock. Surely, this is a deliberation of a sort. Ockham’s own example is medical. Having understood and willed that one ought to be healthy, a sick patient goes to a doctor. The doctor conducts a deliberation (consilium) or inquiry (inquisitionem) as to the best means of procuring the health of her patient, and this might include exercise, diet, taking certain medicines, etc. The doctor determines and then selects which means is best for the health of that patient at that time.18 If we take Ockham’s account of the doctor seriously, and I see no reason not to, then I think we have to nuance Holopainen’s reading to this: deliberation is not a necessary step in the making of one’s product. One craftworker may deliberate where another does not, and this may be due to their respective grasp of the relevant general propositions of their craft. Put otherwise, whether they deliberate or not may have to do with how much they know of their craft and the extent to which they have experience of particular circumstances and concrete situations. The builder who has constructed cottages on granite does not need to deliberate about how best to build her cottage on Georgian Bay. The doctor who has seen a hundred cases of the flu in one winter will not need to deliberate about the best means to relieve the symptoms of her patient. The introduction of the notion of experience brings us to the final aspect of Ockham’s conception of craft that I would like to address.

 See Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 10, OTh. I, 286–287, ll. 1–2. Osborne notes that this passage is the only place in Ockham’s corpus where he delineates all the stages of a single human act (2014, pp. 140–142). I have made the doctor and patient two individuals, but I do not think that this distorts the example, as it is relevant for my purposes.

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20.3.3  T  he Epistemic Status of Craft: Experience, Subalternation, and Community In his response to Scotus’s claim about craft as a quasi-remote direction-giving habit, Ockham states that the habits by which the craftworker cognizes the general propositions of her craft are evidently cognized on the basis of her experience of singulars. But this, he notes, seems to contradict the distinction that Aristotle draws in Metaphysics I 1 (981a12–24) between “experienced persons” (following King 2003) and craftworkers, where, to put it broadly, the former have experience but no theory while the latter have theory but may have no experience.19 There are two ­difficulties that Ockham brings to light in connection to Aristotle’s distinction, and with this turn, Ockham brings us to the very crux of the epistemic status of craft and the craftworker. The first difficulty is whether the experienced person is better at making his product than the craftworker who lacks the relevant experience, and if so then how (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 318, ll. 24–26). The second difficulty is whether a craftworker can be said to evidently cognize the principles of her craft, if these principles can only be known through experience (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 319, ll. 23–24). As regards the first difficulty, Ockham explains that there are cases for which it is entirely appropriate that experienced persons are more successful than craftworkers, namely when the actual making of one’s product requires the repeated exercise of parts of the body (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 319, ll. 1–5). His example is music. A student of music who practises every day will acquire a physical facility that the student who neglects to practise every day will not. Even if the second student has mastered music theory, he will not be able to play as well as the first student (on the music example in Scotus and Buridan, see King 2003, p.  216). Another example that Ockham mentions is medicine. Although he would not have considered surgeons doctors, we might think of surgeons for whom the repeated experience of performing surgical procedures facilitates their having steady hands and making swift incisions. Ockham admits that experienced persons can acquire the cognition of many universal and particular propositions that the craftworker may not unless, presumably,

 Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 318, ll. 15–18: “Praeterea, sicut patet in una alia quaestione, ista universalia non possunt evidenter cognosci nisi per experientiam; et per consequens praesupponitur experientia, et ita immediate diriget respectu alicuius.” A few lines later, he mitigates the strength of this claim to, “frequenter non potest haberi sine experientia singularium; et posito quod posset, adhuc perfecte dirigeret respectus alicuius.” See Müller (2000, pp. 158–160) for brief commentary on these same passages with particular emphasis on the role of experience in connection to moral knowledge and prudence. On the nature of experience in connection to craft and knowledge in Aristotle and his medieval interpreters, see King (2003). King argues that one can find two conceptions of experience in Aristotle’s Metaphysics I 1, the second of which posits experience as a competence that is “a worthy competitor to art and science” (p. 214). King holds that Ockham adopts this conception of experience, according to which experience becomes a kind of knowledge; he too discusses Ockham’s reading of Metaphysics I 1.

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she too has had the relevant experience. But he insists with Aristotle that the experienced person will only know that these propositions are true, but not why they are true. In contrast, the craftworker knows in some sense why these propositions are true, even if, as we shall see below, there may be a question as to what degree she knows them.20 What Ockham may be alluding to is a process of induction whereby someone can infer a general truth about, say, the medicinal efficacy of a given kind of herb from a set of concrete and particular experiences (“intuitive cognitions”) of ill people ingesting that herb and recovering from their illness. An observant, experienced person who has witnessed people complaining of fever and pain and whose symptoms are relieved once they drink willow bark tea, can correctly infer that willow bark tea helps against fever and pain (see Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 2, OTh. I, 94–95, ll. 20–8). What Ockham writes here suggests that this would not be the same as a doctor’s knowledge that willow bark relieves fever and pain because it contains salicin, which is converted into salicylic acid by the body, and that salicylic acid is an anti-inflammatory, thereby explaining the antipyretic and analgesic effect of willow bark tea on the body. The doctor, but not the experienced person, knows why the proposition “willow bark tea relieves fever and pain” is true.21 As for the second difficulty, Ockham distinguishes between principles that are exclusively known by experience and principles that are known per se, that is, merely on the basis of their terms having been cognized. In both cases, Ockham thinks that the craftworker is still more likely to evidently cognize, and thus know, more of either kind of principle than the experienced person. He concedes, however, that the experienced person may grasp a proposition on the basis of her experience that is, in effect, a conclusion, the principles of which she does not know (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 319–320, ll. 25–10)—for instance, our observant,  It is decisive for King that Ockham concedes that experienced persons know universal propositions, since this effectively “rejects Aristotle’s contention that the experienced person knows only particulars […]. This opens the floodgates to an alternative approach to questions of knowledge and experience” (2003, p. 223). King does not take up the part of the text that I here italicize, which suggests that Ockham still adopts the more traditional bias towards the craftworker; the text reads: “Aliter potest hoc contingere, quia experti habet notitiam aliquorum singularium et aliquorum universalium quorum alii non habent evidentem notitiam. Unde expertus in experiendo adquirit notitiam multarum propositionum universalium quas alius habere non potest, quamvis expertus nesciat eas per causam sed tantum quia; et alius—scilicet artifex—aliquo modo novit causam in universali vel particulari, sicut aliquando contingit in scientia subalternante respectu subalternatae” (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 319, ll. 13–20). 21  I should point out, however, that when Ockham discusses the example of induction on the basis of one’s experience of singulars, his point is precisely that the epistemic agent does know the truth in question, just on the basis of experience rather than demonstration. As I go on to suggest, I think that the introduction of experienced persons as distinct from and inferior to craftworkers is misplaced in Ockham’s general epistemological scheme. Not only is he well-known for defending the possibility of genuine scientific and demonstrative knowledge on the basis of our experience of singulars, he is also cryptic on the extent to which we can have such knowledge of causality as such. It is not obvious to me that a doctor has better knowledge of the causal activity of the active ingredients of willow bark tea than an observant, experienced person. I concur with King (2003, pp. 27–28), who casts doubt on the plausibility of Aristotle’s claim, which Ockham agrees with here, that craftworkers but not experienced persons understand through causes. 20

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experienced person who grasps that “my child’s fever will diminish if I give her a cup of willow bark tea” but has not arrived at this conclusion through her knowledge of any principles. Ockham regularly admits that we might cognize some conclusions on the basis of experience or demonstration (e.g., Ordinatio, Prologue q. 2, OTh. I, 90, ll. 10–13). I take it that this accounts for the difference between a parent who is merely an observant, experienced person as opposed to a parent who is a doctor. Even if both parents grasp the same conclusion, and even if, as Ockham grants, the experienced person may be more successful in ultimately relieving the symptoms of her child, Ockham concludes that the craftworker tends to be the more knowledgeable of the two (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 320, ll. 10–11).22 This concession leads Ockham to admit that a student of moral philosophy who has never had the occasion to act on his habit of prudence could indeed “acquire a cognition of all the universal propositions that someone else with practice acquires, such that he would have a habit as perfect and as perfectively directive as the other person,” but, Ockham notes, “this is in fact either not possible or extremely difficult [to achieve].”23 In my view, the categories of the “person of experience” vs. “craftworker” cannot be mutually exclusive for Ockham, so to present them as such is somewhat misleading, not least because he endorses the notion that we know many truths— even those that can function as the principles of scientific knowledge—on the basis of our experience of singulars through first intuitive and then abstractive cognition (cf. Kobusch 1994, p. 510). Craftworkers do generally have the relevant experience, and it is on the basis of this experience that they are able to evidently cognize some of the principles of their craft. Put otherwise, I think it plausible that all or most craftworkers have experience, whereas not all nor perhaps most “merely” experienced persons are craftworkers. What seems to be more important to Ockham is that the craftworker evidently cognizes more than someone who is ignorant of the principles of a craft, the universal propositions that instruct a craftworker in how to go about making her product. So, to use King’s phrase, experience is indeed “a plus” for the craftworker just as much as anyone else. An experienced craftworker will be both more knowledgeable and as successful at making her product as an experienced person. Despite Ockham’s apparently optimistic assessment of the craftworker’s epistemic status in his discussion of Metaphysics I 1, the fact remains that many of the principles in various crafts are not evidently cognized by the craftworker. This follows from Ockham’s contention that many crafts rely on theoretical truths as their principles, which happens in cases of subalternation, and that in such cases the  It is statements such as these that make me hesitant to wholeheartedly agree with King’s conviction that for Ockham “skillful expertise [is] the equal of traditional scientific knowledge” (King 2003, p. 224). 23  Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 320, ll. 14–19: “Et ideo dico quod si aliquis studens in morali philosophia sine omni actu prudentiae vel morali posset adquirere notitiam omnium propositionem universalium quas adquirit alius exercitatus, quod ita perfectum habitum et ita perfecte directivum haberet ipse sicut alius. Sed de facto vel hoc non est possibile, vel cum maxime difficultate.” 22

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craftworker often does not necessarily evidently cognize the principles in question. Ockham certainly grants that practical conclusions can be at least partially or mediately deduced from theoretical principles. Using his example, “soil is hard” is a truth first established in some branch of natural philosophy, presumably geology, and this truth functions as a principle in the craft of agriculture. Because she grasps that soil is hard, a farmer can conclude that given the condition of the soil in her fields she ought to till the soil of her fields to such and such an extent in order to sow the seed and grow her crops.24 Although Ockham admits that one might say that principles such as these are virtually practical, he insists that they are theoretical without qualification (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 314, ll. 19–23). For otherwise, almost every principle would count as practical, since so many theoretical truths can be applied, as it were, to instructing the craftworker as to how to go about making her product, e.g., how to grow her crops on her farm in, say, the climate of southern Quebec. He explains that this is especially true of practical sciences that are subalternate to theoretical sciences. Ockham provides the examples of a cognition of the geometrical principle “every triangle has three sides,” which functions as a principle in mechanical crafts like architecture, and of course music, which is subalternate to arithmetic (Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 314, ll. 23–26). Subalternation is precisely the relation that holds between two sciences where a conclusion of one, the subalternating science, is used as a principle in the other, the subalternate science.25 Generally speaking—and this is evident in the sorts of examples that Ockham discusses here—the theoretical truth in question is a conclusion of a demonstration belonging to natural philosophy or mathematics, which is cognized in some sense by a craftworker and consequently functions as a principle from which she arrives at a practical conclusion belonging to her craft. But, and this is the important point, the craftworker does not evidently cognize those principles unless she herself has demonstrated them as conclusions following from their own principles in natural philosophy or mathematics. Craftworkers do not involve themselves in the business of conducting scientific and mathematical demonstrations as a matter of course. However, some craftworkers do, and we can see this in the case of engineers, doctors, statisticians, and so forth today—we call them “applied scientists,” and their education typically requires them to know physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, etc., to some degree. Ockham has no difficulty admitting that some crafts are both theoretical and practical precisely because many of their principles are purely

 Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 11, OTh. I, 314, ll. 3–10: “Si dicatur quod conclusiones practicae non resolvuntur in principia speculativa […] respondeo quod non est inconveniens conclusiones practicas saltem mediate vel partialiter deduci ex principiis speculabilibus. Verbi gratia, ex isto pure speculabili, scilicet ‘terra est dura,’ accipiunter multa practica. Propter hoc enim oportet quod aretur vel frangatur aliquo duro ad hoc quod sit apta ad actiones quas agricultor habet exercere circa eam.” Cf. Summula, Praeambula, OPh. VI, 150, ll. 322–334 for an example of “mixed” practical syllogism that has theoretical and practical principles and a practical conclusion. 25  For a discussion of subalternation between sciences in Ockham and further references, see Pelletier (2013, pp. 36–38). 24

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theoretical, even if their conclusions are practical and applied to particular set of circumstances (medicine is his example in Ordinatio, Prologue, q. 12, OTh. I, 357, ll. 17–23). The properly educated craftworker may well be able to understand these principles on par with a theoretical scientist. But not all crafts are like this, and we can think here perhaps of carpentry, nursing, navigation, agriculture, and other crafts, where a craftworker is more likely to assume truths that theoretical scientists have already arrived at. It would be, I think, a modern prejudice to dignify the former as applied sciences and disparage the latter as mere crafts. They are all crafts, according to Ockham, the former just as much as the latter. Many craftworkers essentially take it on faith that a principle of their craft is true. In this case, the craftworker believes the principle is true but does not know that it is true, at least not in the strict sense of knowledge as demonstrative. Craftworkers in this position leave it to the broader scientific community to establish many of the truths that will be able to function as the principles of their craft. I think that we can extend this insight beyond the findings of the scientific community to the findings of other craftworkers, the technical community. On the basis of their experience of singulars, certain members of the technical community have been able to set forth, as it were, the universal propositions upon which any one craftworker may rely when making her product. Consider a builder who learns from someone else’s experience of constructing a house on granite how to go about building her own cottage on the shores of Georgian Bay. Craft, in this view, is built up out of the accumulated experience and knowledge of technical and scientific communities. Any particular craftworker may know the universal propositions that instruct her in how to make her product on the basis of her own grasp of their terms, her own experience of singulars, or her own scientific knowledge; or, she may believe these propositions on the basis of other people’s experience or other people’s scientific knowledge that is communicated to her; or, and this I think is the more likely in the real world, she operates with a combination of both.

20.4  Conclusion Much of the philosophical complexity that Buridan brings to bear on the question of craft as an intellectual virtue and why we should think that it is, which Medeiros Ramos’s contribution amply attests to, is absent from Ockham’s treatment. Most notably, Ockham does not bother to argue that craft is an intellectual virtue at all; rather, he seems to presuppose that it is. Moreover, he does not distinguish between the factive and the theoretical and practical intellect (but then, he does not think that the theoretical and practical intellect are distinct anyway); he does not discuss how we should think of craft as perfecting the intellect; he does not wonder whether the acquisition of a craft makes a craftworker good and then in what sense; he does not, so far as I can tell, distinguish between the liberal and the mechanical arts in any detail. To the extent that he treats craft at all, Ockham’s focus is on fitting craft into a broad categorization of the various forms of human cognition, and in particular as

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a form of practical cognition that is informative rather than dictative. Moreover, it would appear that many crafts include theoretical elements and as such are not purely non-theoretical, despite being categorized as practical. His account of craft allows for a broad spectrum of different crafts that range from the very theoretical and scientifically grounded to the less theoretical and far more experientially grounded. Acknowledgements  I would like to thank the editors for having invited me to participate in this volume. I am grateful to Can Löwe, Claude Panaccio, and Martin Pickavé for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper, as well as Thomas Osborne for so promptly sharing some of his material with me by email. This research was made possible by funding from Research Foundation – Flanders.

References Primary Sources Scotus, J. D. (2017). Ethical writings (T. Williams, Trans.). In John Duns Scotus: Selected writings on ethics. Oxford University Press. William of Ockham. (1967). Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum [Ordinatio]. Prologus et distinctio prima (G.  Gál & S.  Brown, Eds.). In Opera theologica (Vol. 1). St. Bonaventure University. [= OTh. I]. William of Ockham. (1982). Quaestiones in librum tertium Sententiarum [Reportatio] (F. E. Kelley & G. I. Etzkorn, Eds.). In Opera theologica (Vol. 6). St. Bonaventure University. [= OTh. VI]. William of Ockham. (1984). Summula philosophiae naturalis [Summula] (S.  Brown, Ed.). In Opera philosophica (Vol. 6). St. Bonaventure University. [= OPh. VI]. William of Ockham. (2000). Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum [Ordinatio]. Distinctiones XIX–XLVIII (G. I. Etzkorn & F. E. Kelley, Eds.). In Opera theologica (Vol. 4). St. Bonaventure University. [= OTh. IV].

Secondary Sources Freppert, L. (1988). The basis of morality according to William Ockham. Franciscan Herald Press. Holopainen, T. M. (1991). William Ockham’s theory of the foundations of ethics. Publications of Luther-Agricola-Society. King, P. (2003). Two conceptions of experience. Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 11, 203–226. Kobusch, T. (1994). Kunstwissen und sittliches Wissen in der Philosophie des Nominalismus. In I. Craemer-Ruegenberg & A. Speer (Eds.), Scientia und ars im Hoch und Spätmittelalter (Vol. 1, pp. 499–513). Miscellanea Mediaevalia, 22. Walter de Gruyter. Maurer, A. (1999). The philosophy of William of Ockham in the light of its principles. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Medeiros Ramos, A. (2021). Is ars an intellectual virtue? John Buridan on craft. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Müller, S. (2000). Handeln in einer kontingenten Welt. Zu Begriff und Bedeuntung der rechten Vernunft (recta ratio) bei Wilhelm von Ockham. Francke.

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Osborne, T. M., Jr. (2007). The separation of the interior and exterior acts in Scotus and Ockham. Mediaeval Studies, 69, 111–139. Osborne, T. M., Jr. (2014). Human action in Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus & William of Ockham. The Catholic University of America Press. Parry, R. (2020). Episteme and techne. In E.  N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/ episteme-­techne Pelletier, J. (2013). Ockham on metaphysics. The science of being and God. E.J. Brill. Spade, P.  V. (Ed.). (1999). The Cambridge companion to William of Ockham. Cambridge University Press. Jenny Pelletier is a researcher in late medieval philosophy based in Belgium at the University of Leuven. She has published primarily on various philosophical themes, particularly in metaphysics and epistemology, in the work of William Ockham and some of his fellow Franciscans from the first half of the fourteenth century.  

Part X

Eve’s Sin in Isotta Nogarola

Chapter 21

The Fruit of Knowledge: To Bite or not to Bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s Sin and Its Scholastic Sources Marcela Borelli, Valeria A. Buffon, and Natalia G. Jakubecki

Abstract  As we know, the sacred books of the three religions are not characterized by a gender-friendly approach. In the very beginning of the Old Testament we find the tale of the Fall of Man, where the serpent tempts Eve, who in turn tempts Adam to commit the original sin: to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Eve’s guilt is taken for granted, and rarely discussed. The question of Eve’s guilt was first taken up in Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram, and was then later further systematized in Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Isotta Nogarola was a pioneer in taking this discussion beyond university walls, to the intellectual Veronese circles. When Isotta Nogarola pleads for Eve’s case in her Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve, she may not be the first to defend Eve, but she has the merit of being a woman who is pleading for a woman’s case. We examine the background of this discussion in Isotta, focusing especially on the scholastic antecedents to this debate. Although most of the quotations cited by Isotta are attributed to early Christian and pagan authors—sources that are typical of humanistic literature—we will demonstrate that many of them are in fact taken from scholastic sources discussing original sin, which are the true immediate sources of Isotta’s dialogue.

M. Borelli (*) Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas y Crítica Textual, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] V. A. Buffon Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Santa Fe, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] N. G. Jakubecki Universidad de Buenos Aires, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_21

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Keywords  Isotta Nogarola · Eve · Adam · Original sin · Renaissance women · Humanism · Scholastics · Dialogue

21.1  I ntroduction: Renaissance Women Biting the Fruit of Knowledge The fruit of knowledge: To bite or not to bite. Was Eve ever confronted with this dilemma? If she did not bite, thus obeying her Lord, she would lose forever the possibility of knowing what God knows; if, on the contrary, she did bite, she would be damned for eternity. It seems that knowledge is such a temptation that women have succumbed to it since the beginning of time. Who could blame them for striving for knowledge? In the fifteenth century, cultural conditions made it difficult to maintain a perspective fully favourable to women. Our case is that of a Renaissance woman who, confronted with a traditional question answered in a traditional manner, decided to take a new approach. Isotta Nogarola participated in the so-called Querelle des femmes, the debate about women inaugurated by Christine de Pizan. In her Book of the City of Ladies, completed in 1405, de Pizan defended women and refuted the misogynistic attacks on them. Of a generation of educated women writers who followed her example, the earliest were Italian noblewomen like Battista da Montelfeltro and Malatesta of Urbino. A second wave of woman humanists followed, including Isotta Nogarola, Ippolita Sforza of Milan, and Laura Cereta (Jansen 2008, pp. 115–153). Born probably by 1418 in a Veronese noble family, Isotta Nogarola began her studies at an early age. Her family already honoured female learning in her aunt, Angela.1 Her mother, a widow, educated all of her ten children in the finest curriculum. Two of her daughters, Isotta and Ginevra, had as their tutor Martino Rizzoni, a pupil of Guarino Veronese. From their very early youth, the two sisters were famed for their erudition and received letters from northern Italian male humanists (King 1991, p. 195). The cultural education Isotta Nogarola received was more advanced than what was expected for a woman of her time. She was literate in Latin and mastered different genres of writing. During the Renaissance, the education of women was considered important: young girls were to be taught to read, to rescue them from ignorance and allow them to approach the most serious authors of their time. Although women were to acquire a high level of education, its purpose was limited. The education prescribed for the young middle- or upper-class women of the Renaissance was usually not one that would cultivate their mind, but one that would encourage obedience to family duties and to virtues. Women were not expected to

 About Angela, see Parker (2002).

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concern themselves with rhetoric, but rather to be silent, reserved, chaste and obedient. They were taught what was useful for them to know, according to contemporary conduct books. They were seldom introduced to the elevated culture of the Latin language (King 1991, p. 157ff.). By 1438, Isotta’s sister Ginevra married a nobleman and consequently abandoned her studies. Isotta, however, was determined to continue her scholarly pursuits. From the time she was eighteen, she initiated correspondence with the great men of her time: humanists, churchmen and statesmen. Her efforts to enter the circle of learned men brought her much pain and disdain. An event that marked her road to understanding the difficulty she would face occurred in 1437. After hearing that Guarino Veronese praised her talents in his correspondence, Nogarola wrote him a letter.2 Guarino, however, did not reply to her first missive and this neglect won her the scorn of the women of Verona, who condemned and humiliated her for her arrogance in approaching such a great man. Nogarola wrote to Guarino a second time with a plaintive, self-deprecating letter, complaining about the feebleness of her sex and reproaching him that his silence had exposed her to the mockery of other women. Guarino replied this second time, both to reassure and reprove her, saying: “I used to think and proclaim you had a manly spirit, that nothing could happen you would not bear with a strong and unbreakable spirit. But now you show yourself so humble, so abject and so truly a woman that I cannot distinguish anything in you that would correspond to my outstanding perception of you.”3 To devote herself to the contemplative life, he says, “it is needful to create a man within the woman.”4 By this time, she was also the target of calumnies, involving a false accusation of promiscuity and incest by an anonymous letter that circulated in the Veronese circle (King 1978, p. 809). Either way, she was damned: if she bit the fruit of knowledge, she would be viewed as arrogant, as if she regretted her female condition; if she apologized, she would no longer be worthy of respect as a man would be. By 1441, still preferring a life of study over marriage, and having failed in her efforts to be a recognized participant in the humanist culture, Isotta retreated to the celibate life appropriate for someone with a religious vocation. She lived isolated in a room in her mother’s house, where she dedicated herself to the study of religious literature. We have a glimpse of Nogarola’s education during her retreat in a letter sent by the Venetian nobleman Lauro Quirini. In it, at the request of Isotta’s brother, Quirini outlined a program of study that contained a list of rhetorical and philosophical texts: she had to read, above all, Aristotle, Boethius’ commentaries on Aristotle, and the Arab philosophers Avicenna, Averroes, and Al Ghazali, all of whose texts were 2  Cf. Guarino Veronese, ed. 1915, Isotta Nogarola’s ep. 703, pp. 304–305 and Isotta Nogarola, ep. 704, pp. 305–306. 3  “[…] te adeo virili animo et opinari et praedicare solebam, ut nihil accidere posset quod non forti et invicto ferres pectore. Nunc autem sic demissam abiectam et vere mulierem tete ostentas, ut nihil magnifico de te sensui meo respondere te cernam” (Guarino Veronese, ed. 1915, ep. 705, p. 306). All translations are ours, unless otherwise noted. 4  “et in muliere virum faciam opus est” (Guarino Veronese, ed. 1915, ep. 705, p. 307).

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available in Latin translation. Nogarola had no knowledge of Greek, hence Greek commentaries on Aristotle were not available to her except through a Latin translation. Among scholastic authors, Quirini advised her to study only Thomas Aquinas.5 Nogarola mastered most of the humanistic genres: she produced a collection of letters to the most preeminent cultural figures of her time, some orations, elegies, and, perhaps the most significant and philosophical item, the dialogue De Pari aut Impari Evae atque Adae Peccato Dialogus (1451).6 King and Robin hold that: Not only is the dialogue the first work, with the single exception of her consolatory letter to Damiano dal Borgo (1438), in which she displays her knowledge of the early church fathers and the Scriptures. The dialogue is her most learned and at the same time her most syncretic writing to date in terms of its interweaving—so characteristic of the humanists—of Christian and pagan references, paraphrases, and quotations. (King & Robin 2004, p. 142)

Yet a survey of quoted sources reveals that Nogarola’s merits are not based on her having mastered early sources; rather, a detailed analysis shows that what she had mastered were the formal and conceptual elements proper to the scholastic tradition. We intend to identify these elements with the aim of reconsidering Nogarola’s dialogue on Adam and Eve, studying it within its accurate theoretical framework.

21.2  Biting Words: Discursive and Argumentative Aspects As the title of the De Pari aut Impari Evae atque Adae Peccato Dialogus indicates, it asks whether it was Adam or Eve who had committed the greater sin. There are five interventions in Nogarola’s dialogue: three from Ludovico Foscarini and two from Isotta herself. Ludovico begins by stating three main argumentative topics: (a) the gravity of Adam’s and Eve’s punishment; (b) the cause of Adam’s and Eve’s sin; and (c) Eve as the cause of Adam’s sin. This is followed by Isotta’s own set of arguments, and although she does not fail to address any of her interlocutor’s three topics, she focuses mainly on (b): the cause of their sin. From a formal point of view, the dialogue comprises the confluence of two literary genres: humanistic dialogue and letters, and scholastic disputatio. In fact, a letter from Matteo Bosso indicates that the dispute took place in public. In such a case, it would be the first time a woman participated publicly in a disputatio (Ardissino 2016, p. 11; King & Robin 2004, p. 138). Textual evidence in the dialogue itself alludes to a dispute held not a viva voce but instead through letters exchanged between the discussants (Arriaga Flórez’s introduction to Nogarola trans. 2013, p. 31). Indeed, the dialogue lacks a narrative frame, starts in medias res, and pushes us directly into the exchange of ideas. This is a first indication, though not conclusive, of an epistolary exchange.

 See Lauro Quirini, Ep. LIII (in Nogarola, ed. 1886, p. 9).  This topic will be later reappraised by numerous treatises in the Venetian humanist circle. See Ardissino (2016). 5 6

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There are, however, some textual marks that offer a sounder argument. Firstly, the Ludovico-character closes his second intervention with a typical closure formula of a letter: “Farewell, and do not fear, but dare to do much, because you understand so many things so well and write so learnedly” (Nogarola, trans. 2004, p. 150).7 Secondly, the use of the verb “scribis” could refer to Nogarola’s writing talent. However, other appearances of the verb scribere show that the author did not try to maintain dialogical orality by transforming them into speech verbs. Examples of this phenomenon are located in the closure of Isotta’s first intervention, where we find what could be considered the incipit of a letter: “I have written this because you wished me to. […] But you are kind, and if you find any part of my writing poorly done, you will correct it” (trans. 2004, p. 147, our emphasis).8 In Isotta’s second set, when reappraising Ludovico’s last argument in order to refute it, we read: “‘The fragility of the woman was not the cause of sin, but rather her inordinate appetite […],’ which appetite is the consequence, as you write, of pride” (trans. 2004, p. 152, our emphasis).9 And again in Ludovico’s last intervention: “As to the ease of the man’s consent to the woman’s words, I want, since I am writing to you, to pass by in silence the matter of the deceitfulness of the female sex” (trans. 2004, p. 157, our emphasis).10 Finally, the dialogue ends in a peculiar way, with a male voice and not the author’s; the opponent closes the arguments by answering every objection proposed, and there is no place left for another counter-argument. Was Nogarola convinced by Ludovico Foscarini’s arguments? Did the dispute continue afterwards? The loss of a great number of the letters they exchanged after 1451 does not allow us to speculate further on this matter (King & Robin 2004, p. 116). An immediate hermeneutical consequence of the absent fictional dimension in the De Pari aut Impari Evae atque Adae Peccato Dialogus is that, unlike in other late medieval and humanist dialogues, the author’s voice is not reflected in any added character or distorted for narrative purposes. What the Ludovico-character says is exactly what the Ludovico-author thinks, and the same is true for Isotta (Burke 1989). It seems as if Isotta never managed to entwine the letters into a narrative frame.11 It must not be surprising that when the dialogue was finally printed a century later (1563), Nogarola’s descendant Francesco Nogarola had rewritten it, adding characters, polishing it and adjusting it to the humanistic style.

7  “Vale et ne timeas et aude multa, quia plurima optime didicisti et doctissime scribis” (Nogarola, ed. 1886, p. 197, ll. 15–17). 8  “Haec ut tuae voluntati morem gererem, scripsi […] sed tu pro tua humanitate, si quid inepte scriptum invenies […]” (Nogarola, ed. 1886, p. 191, l. 2 and ll. 18–19, our emphasis). 9  “‘Fragilitas autem mulieris non fuit peccati causa, sed inordinatus appetitus […]’ quod procedit, ut scribis, ex superbia” (Nogarola, ed. 1886, p. 201, ll. 3–6, our emphasis). 10  “De facilitate consensus viri dictis mulieris volo sexus illius deceptiones ad te scribens silentio praeterire […]” (Nogarola, ed. 1886, p. 214, ll. 2–4, our emphasis). 11  About dialogue and letter writing as a female practice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Smarr (2008, pp. 130–153).

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21.3  T  he Roots of Arguments: Analyzing Isotta’s and Ludovico’s Sources Isotta and Ludovico display a wide range of textual references, not only Christian but also classical. King and Robin’s introduction says: “The Dialogue is the most syncretic work of Nogarola’s to date: a stitching together of classical and Christian references. Moreover, it is the first of her works to cite biblical and patristic sources at length with the exception of consolation to Damiano dal Borgo” (2004, p. 207). Nevertheless, an attentive survey of the sources shows otherwise. In fact, most of the early Christian references are directly taken from scholastic sources. Below, we include a table with the references given by Nogarola; we then examine the references that raise some problems.

21.3.1  Quotations Table In Table 21.1 below, we show the sources quoted by Isotta and Ludovico, some of which will be analyzed below. The first column indicates the author referred to in Nogarola’s dialogue; the next column specifies the work quoted or referred to. The third column shows the particular passage in that work that King and Robin identified. In the fourth column these citations are located in Abel’s Latin edition by page and lines; and finally in the fifth column, under the title “Problematic source number,” is the reference to our subsequent analysis.

21.3.2  Problematic Sources Problematic source 1: De Pari aut Impari, p. 187, ll. 10–11 Nogarola’s treatise title reads “Contemptio super Aurelii Augustini sententiam, uidelicet: ‘Peccaverunt impari sexu sed pari fastu.’” This statement has traditionally been attributed to Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram 11.35 (ed. 1894, p.  370, ll. 8–9): “Nec ista confitetur peccatum, sed in alterum refert, impari sexu, pari fastu.” However, Peter of Poitiers quotes Augustine in these words: “Dicit enim Augustinus: Impari sexu, sed pari fastu peccaverunt” (Sent. II, c. 18; ed. 1950, p. 132). Nogarola’s formulation is much closer to that of Peter of Poitiers. Problematic source 2: De Pari aut Impari, p. 206, ll. 3–6 Nogarola quotes Augustine with these words: “Augustinus: Contempsit Adam praeceptum, et non dixit Eva, accipiens ex arbore pomum, sed quidquid Adam perdidit, Christus invenit.” King and Robin (2004, p. 154, n. 55) refer to three paragraphs of Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram 8.17–19. Yet Nogarola’s statement is

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Table 21.1  Sources quoted by Isotta and Ludovico Author referred to in the dialogue Augustine

Work referred to De Genesi ad Litteram

Passage identified by King and Robin (2004) 11.35 11.30 8.17–19 11.9–16 67 PL 42: 671

De Natura et Gratia (Ad Orosium) Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas Mention of Augustine (see K/R, p. 155, n. 60) Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 3.5.1113b30–33 Analytica Posteriora 2.11.94a20– 12.96a19 2.13.96a24–96b24 Peter Lombard Sententiae 2.21.5.2 Liber Regulae 3.32 Gregorius Magnus Pastoralis 1.2 Moralium Libri 4.31(vet. 36).62 Ambrose Expositio in Lucam 9.23 De Paradiso 8.39 Bernard of De Gratia et Libero 1.2 and 4.9 Clairvaux Arbitrio Boethius Consolatio 3.5.42 Isidore Etymologiae 7.1–4 (see K/R, p. 154, n. 54) pro Hilary of De Trinitate X.11 Poitiers

Page.line of De Pari aut Impari… (ed. 1886) 187.10–11 194.20 206.3–6 207.6–8 202.8–11 194.14–15

207.16–208.2

Problematic source number 1 2 3 4 5

6

192.20 196.2 196.8 188.14 197.3 197.7 204.13–16 200.14–15 202.11–13 206.21–207.2

7 8

214.5–6 205.16–20

9

closer to Thomas Aquinas’ reference to Augustine: “Unde Augustinus dicit, in quodam sermone de passione, contempsit Adam praeceptum, accipiens ex arbore, sed quidquid Adam perdidit, Christus in cruce invenit” (S.Th. III, q. 46, a. 4, resp.; also, Catena Aurea In Mat. 27, I.7). Problematic source 3: De Pari aut Impari, p. 207, ll. 6–8 In her second set of arguments, Nogarola quotes Augustine with these words: “Augustinus super Genesi: ‘non potest deus facere contra naturam quam bona voluntate instituit.’” Here, King and Robin’s edition identifies the statement as resembling De Genesi ad Litteram 11.9–16 (King & Robin 2004, p. 154, n. 59). However, we have found a much closer reference to Augustine in Thomas Aquinas: “Unde Augustinus dicit, quod in operibus sex dierum non quaeritur quid Deus miraculose facere possit, sed quid rerum natura patiatur, quam tunc Deus instituit. Ergo nec postea Deus aliquid fecit contra naturae cursum” (De Potentia, q. 6, art. 1, arg. 9).

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Problematic source 4: De Pari aut Impari, p. 202, ll. 8–11 Here Nogarola refers to a passage in Augustine as belonging to De Natura et Gratia: “Item Augustinus de natura et gratia: Peccatum est voluntas consequendi vel retinendi quod iustitia vetat, id est nolle quod deus vult.” King and Robin’s edition says that this idea is pervasive in Augustine’s treatise and that a close parallel is found in De Natura et Gratia 67 (King & Robin 2004, p. 152, n. 50). Nevertheless, a much closer passage is found in Augustine’s De Duabus Animabus 11.15 (ed. 1891, p. 71, ll. 5–6): “Ergo peccatum est voluntas retinendi vel consequendi quod iustitia vetat.” This very same passage is quoted again by Augustine in Contra Iulianum I.44, and is widely referred to in scholastic literature.12 Problematic source 5: De Pari aut Impari, p. 194, ll. 14–15 Nogarola quotes Eccl. 10:13 (p. 194, ll. 7–8), “Initium enim apud Ecclesiasticum, superbia fuit omnis peccati.” A few lines later she quotes Augustine: “Veluti Augustinus Orosio scripsit: Homo elatus superbia suasioni serpentis oboediens praecepta dei contempsit.” In an effort to find the reference in Augustine, King and Robin point to the general sense of the statement in Augustine’s (Ad Orosium) Contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (PL 42: 671); they also suggest that Nogarola was acquainted with Augustine’s De Libero Arbitrio 3.25.76, where the latter quotes the same Biblical passage of Eccl. 10:13 (King & Robin 2004, p.  149, n. 33). However, we have found that this precise passage is quoted verbatim by Aquinas in S.Th. II-II, q. 163, a. 1, ad. 1: “Et hoc est quod Augustinus dicit, ad Orosium, quod homo elatus superbia, suasioni serpentis obediens, praecepta Dei contempsit.” Problematic source 6: De Pari aut Impari, p. 207, l. 16–208, l. 2 Here Nogarola quotes Augustine without referring to a particular work: “Supra mentem nostram nihil praeter deum, nec inter deum et mentem nostram est aliquid medium.” King and Robin could not identify the Augustinian source (2004, p. 155, n. 60), nor could we. Again, the most reasonable possibility is that Nogarola is using an indirect source to quote Augustine. Problematic source 7: De Pari aut Impari, p. 202, ll. 11–13 Nogarola quotes Ambrose as follows: “Ambrosio in libro De Paradiso: Peccatum est transgressio divinae legis et caelestium inoboedientia mandatorum.” The passage in Ambrose, De paradiso 8.39 reads: “Quid est enim peccatum nisi praeuaricatio legis diuinae et caelestium inoboedientia praeceptorum?” (our emphasis). King and Robin (2004, p. 152, n. 51) identified the passage as PL 14: 309; however, it is in PL 14: 292D. Yet, Nogarola’s quote seems to be indirect, since the formulation is much closer to that of Aquinas, where he quotes the same statement: “Sed contra est  Thomas Aquinas, S.Th. I-II, q. 71, a. 6, arg. 2: “Praeterea, Augustinus dicit, in libro de duabus animabus, peccatum est voluntas retinendi vel consequendi quod iustitia vetat.” Peter of Poitiers, Sententiae II, c. 12 (ed. 1950, p. 63): “Et iterum: ‘Peccatum est voluntas retinendi vel consequendi quod iustitia vetat’.” Bandinus, De creatione mundi et de lapsu hominis, d. 35, 1065A: “Peccatum est voluntas retinendi vel consequendi, quod iustitia vetat: Ambrosius quoque ait: Quid est peccatum nisi praevaricatio legis divinae, et coelestium inobedientia praeceptorum?”

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quod Ambrosius dicit, quod peccatum est transgressio legis divinae, et caelestium inobedientia mandatorum” (S.Th. I-II, q. 100, a. 2, s.c.; De Veritate q. 17, a. 4, ad. 3, et passim; our emphasis). Problematic source 8: De Pari aut Impari, p. 206, l. 21–p. 207, l. 2 Nogarola quotes Bernard of Clairvaux: “Nam Bernardus: Liberum arbitrium pro ingenita nobilitate a nulla cogitur necessitate.” King and Robin (2004, p. 154, n. 58) point to two similar yet not identical statements in Bernard of Clairvaux’s De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio 1.2 and 4.9. Nogarola’s formulation seems to be much closer to Thomas of Argentina’s formulation (Com. Sent. II, d. 25, a. 3; ed. 1585, p. 184): “Bern. in libro de libero arbitrio, ubi ait, voluntas pro ingenita nobilitate, nulla cogitur necessitate” (our emphasis); and to Thomas Aquinas’ in De Veritate q. 22, a. 5, s.c. 4: “Praeterea, Bernardus dicit, quod liberum arbitrium ex ingenita nobilitate nulla necessitate movetur” (our emphasis). Evidently the quote is not directly taken from Bernard but from an indirect source. Problematic source 9: De Pari aut Impari, p. 205, ll. 16–20 Nogarola quotes Isidorus: “Unde Isidorus de trinitate: Unigenitus dei filius ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum consummasse se omne genus passionum testatur, cum inclinato capite emisit spiritum.” There is a problem with the attribution. King and Robin (2004, p. 154, n. 54) did not find any similar statement in Isidore of Seville’s entry of “trinitate” in his Etymologiae, nor in any treatise attributed to him under the name “De Trinitate.” A similar statement, however, is quoted by Thomas Aquinas and attributed to Hilary of Poitiers’ De Trinitate X: “Dicit enim Hilarius, in X de Trin., unigenitus Dei, ad peragendum mortis suae sacramentum, consummasse in se omne humanarum genus passionum testatur, cum, inclinato capite, emisit spiritum” (S.Th. III, q. 46, a. 5, ad. 1, our emphasis). The passage is from Hilary of Poitiers’ De Trinitate X 11 (ed. 1980, p. 467, ll. 6–10): “Unigenitus autem Deus, ita potestatem habens ponendae animae ut resumendae, ad peragendum in se mortis sacramentum, cum poto aceto consummasse se omne humanarum passionum opus testatus esset, inclinato capite Spiritum tradidit” (our emphasis). Nogarola’s text is closer to Aquinas’ formulation as is attested in the use of the verb “emittere” instead of “tradere.” Many remarks can follow from this analysis: (a) Nogarola was perhaps quoting from memory something that she had previously read or heard; (b) she was quoting from an indirect source, and as indicated by our analysis, it appears quite certain that she took her quotations from scholastic authors, mainly Thomas Aquinas; (c) furthermore, she might have had access to florilegia from which these passages might have been taken.13 Hence, the quotations attributed to the Early Church Fathers all appear to be indirect and to have been excerpted from scholastic sources. The dialogue seems to

 The use of florilegia was very common by that time. For further information see Muñoz et al. (2013). We have not found the particular florilegia used by Isotta.

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be rooted in a scholastic disputation, and written by someone having mostly Thomas Aquinas at hand, along with some other late medieval theologians and canonists. Although some of those quotations come from Ludovico’s discourse, we should bear in mind the above-mentioned letter from Lauro Quirini, who recommended to Isotta “the study of Aristotle and its commentators, and especially Thomas Aquinas.” Our author has clearly taken that recommendation very seriously.

21.4  Adam, the Unwilling Bite The “trigger text” of Isotta’s De Pari aut Impari Evae atque Adae Peccato Dialogus is found in Augustin’s De Genesi ad Litteram, whom she quotes at the very beginning of her work: “Nec ista confitetur peccatum, sed in alterum refert, impari sexu, pari fastu” (11.35, ed. 1894, p. 370, ll. 8–9; our emphasis). Even though she refers to Augustine, the very question “who sinned the most, Adam or Eve?” has its roots in the scholastic world. Indeed, in the second half of the twelfth century Augustine’s sentence had resulted in a quaestio. It appears in Peter Lombard’s Sententiae II, d. 22, c. 4: “Quis plus peccavit, Adam vel Eva?” And almost two decades later, in 1179, Peter of Poitiers gives this question a scholastic formulation in Sententiae II, c. 18: “De peccato Adae, ubi quaeritur utrum plus peccaverit Adam quam Eva,” which is Nogarola’s formulation as well. Peter Abelard had already discussed before Lombard one of the greatest excuses for man’s sin: ignorance. For the Magister Palatinus, sin consists in contempt of God (contemptus Dei), which occurs when we consent in what we think displeases Him. However, doing what is not appropriate (quod non convenit) is not necessarily due to an intention to go against His will, but is often due to ignorance (Ethica I.36). Now, there are two kinds of ignorance: (1) If ignorance is a product of negligence, it does not excuse (excusat) from sin, because insufficient effort was exerted to overcome it. Nor can ignorance contribute to sin in a proper sense, since no divine order was intentionally infringed. In any case, we may consider that ignorance can contribute to a sin in an improper sense, which, as such, does not entail guilt but is still enough to condemn us. (2) In turn, if ignorance could not be foreseen (providere non valuimus), it is then invincible; and, although it entails no guilt, it does not always excuse from sin, even in an improper sense (Ethica I.36–45). In his complex explanation, Abelard makes an important distinction: invincible ignorance refers to a cognitive incapacity, whose cause resides either in the object or in the subject of knowledge. When incapacity is due to the object’s characteristics (for example divine nature, which cannot be known), ignorance excuses from guilt, but does not revoke moral agency. On the other hand, cognitive incapacity can reside in the subject of knowledge such as children, insane people, and “naturally stupid ones (naturales stulti),” i.e., those who, although participating in human nature through rationality, cannot easily exert it (facile exercere) in order to know God, and despise Him deliberately (De Intellectibus 9). Only this kind of natural ignorance based on the subject’s natural conditions thoroughly excuses from sin in

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the improper and in the proper sense, and even revokes moral agency. Indeed, children as well as insane and naturally stupid people cannot sin, but neither can they act rightly (Ethica I.38–45).14 Even if invincible ignorance was not a major debate from Abelard’s time up to the Sens Council of 1141, it became increasingly important from 1150 onward among jurists (particularly canonists) as well as among theologians. Two of Abelard’s disciples witnessed the first reception of this concept: Roland Bandinelli (the future Pope Alexander III), who explains in his Sententiae that Eve’s ignorance does not excuse her behavior since her lack of knowledge comes from a previous fault; and Peter Lombard, about whom more will be said below. Based on Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram, Peter Lombard stated in Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4 (Quis plus peccavit, Adam vel Eva?) that Eve sinned more than Adam because: (1) Eve wanted to be equal to God but Adam did not: “Who sinned more, Adam or Eve?” Manifestly, it can be considered which of them sinned more, Adam or Eve. The woman seems to have sinned more, for she wanted to become equal to divinity, and having exceptional boldness, she thought that so it would be. But Adam did not believe that, and thought about penitence and God’s mercy; while soothing his wife, consented to her persuasion in order for her not to perish, not willing to make her sad and turn her against him, for he thought it was a venial, not a mortal fault. (Lombard, Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4)15

Adam sinned less because he was thinking about penitence and God’s mercy and he was not seduced by the idea of being like God, while Eve was. Not only was he not seduced by pride, but he also wanted Eve not to be saddened, because he thought she would die of grief if he did not do as she wished. Moreover, he was mistaken about the nature of the sin. He did not know it was a mortal sin, believing it to be venial. Here is another antecedent of what is going to be reappraised in later discussions on ignorance. (2) Adam did not feel any concupiscence. It was only his great friendship for Eve that made him acquiesce to her demand: Following Augustine on Genesis (De Genesi ad Litteram 11.42): In fact, after the woman was seduced, she ate, and she gave it to him in order for both to eat at the same time. He did not want to make her sad, believing that she would be consumed without his consolation, and far away from him she would completely die: certainly overcome not by carnal

 Abelard says that they will only be saved by sacraments. Grellard (2020) has long discussed on this topic and on Bandinelli’s later development. We would like to thank Prof. Grellard for kindly letting us read his manuscript copy. 15  “‘Quis plus peccavit, Adam vel Eva?’ Ex quo manifeste animadverti potest quis eorum plus peccaverit, Adam scilicet vel Eva. Plus enim videtur peccasse mulier, quae voluit usurpare divinitatis aequalitatem, et nimia praesumptione elata, credidit ita esse futurum. Adam vero nec illud credidit, et de poenitentia et Dei misericordia cogitavit, dum uxori morem gerens, eius persuasioni consensit, nolens eam contristare et a se alienatam relinquere, ne periret, arbitratus illud esse veniale, non mortale delictum” (ed. 1971–1981, p. 442). 14

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c­ oncupiscence, which he did not feel yet, but by a friendly benevolence, by which it often happens that we offend God so as not to offend a friend. (Lombard, Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4)16

(3) Since Eve’s punishment was more severe, she must have sinned more: From all this we must understand that the woman sinned more, in whom boldness was of bigger arrogance. Also, because she sinned against herself, and against her neighbor and against God, but man only against himself and against God. Considering punishment too, it is proven that the woman sinned more than the man. Thence, it is also inferred that the woman sinned more, since she was punished more severely, to whom it was said: “In pain you will bear children.” (Lombard, Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, original emphasis)17

This formulation of the argument is at the core of the scholastic tradition and has its origin in Augustine. As presented by Peter Lombard, it constitutes the fallacy of affirming the consequent: “If x sins more (P), then x is more seriously punished (Q). Eve has been more seriously punished (Q), therefore, Eve sinned more (P).” The structure of this argument is the following: ((P→Q), Q)→P —which is evidently invalid. The fact that this was seen as an authoritative argument may have led the scholastic tradition to use it to a certain extent. However, this is no longer the case from Albert the Great and Bonaventure onward. (4) Peter presents the following counter-argument, indicating that Adam and Eve sinned equally: “impari sexu, pari fastu,” as Augustine said (De Genesi ad Litteram 11.35). However, without providing any auctoritas, he dismisses this counter-argument, saying that, despite eating the same fruit, Eve’s sin was greater because she believed and wanted to be like God, while Adam did not (Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4; ed. 1971–1981, p. 444). Discussing the first argument, Phillip Rosemann considers that Peter Lombard’s arguments are rather weak. According to Rosemann, Lombard’s description of Adam’s motives for sinning must appear slightly amusing from our contemporary perspective: “[…] while Eve was animated by passion and proud presumption, Adam merely misjudged the seriousness of the sin he was about to commit because he did not wish to sadden his weak companion and expose her to the dangers of life without his protection” (Roseman 2004, p. 110). According to his perspective on the situation, Peter Lombard decides, though not without hesitation, that Eve’s transgression was more serious than Adam’s.

 “Augustinus, Super Genesim: Postquam enim mulier seducta manducavit eique dedit ut simul ederent, noluit eam contristare, quam credebat sine suo solatio contabescere, et a se alienatam omnino interire: non quidem carnali victus concupiscentia, quam nondum senserat, sed amicabili quadam benevolentia, qua plerumque fit ut offendatur Deus ne offendatur amicus” (ed. 1971–1981, p. 443). 17  “Ex his datur intelligi quod mulier plus peccaverit, in qua maioris tumoris praesumptio fuit. Quare etiam in se et in proximum et in Deum peccavit; vir autem tantum in se et in Deum.—Ex poena etiam plus peccasse probatur mulier. Inde etiam colligitur quod mulier plus peccaverit, quia gravius punita est, cui dictum fuit: In dolore paries filios etc.” (ed. 1971–1981, p. 443; emphasis in bold in the edition). 16

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Two decades after Peter Lombard, in 1179, the question about the gravity of sin takes a definitive scholastic formulation in Peter of Poitiers’ Sent. II, c. 18: “De peccato Adae, ubi quaeritur utrum plus peccaverit Adam quam Eva.” In the first part of Poitiers’ quaestio, the arguments are almost the same as those of his master Peter Lombard. The second part, however, begins with a discussion of the problem of ignorance, just where Lombard’s distinctio ends. Although Peter of Poitiers finally rejects Eve’s exculpation, stating that the cause of her sin was evil will (prava voluntas) because she knowingly violated God’s precept (Sent. II, c. 18, 134), he sets out some objections in favour of her ignorance. Amongst them, one is particularly interesting for us: Eve believed that the Devil’s sayings were not contrary to God’s commandment since she had a “weak intellect (parvi intellectus).”18 This is significant, not only due to the characterization’s contrast with the “sapientissimus” Adam (Sent. II, c. 18, 132), but especially because it brings back the Abelardian idea of invincible natural ignorance. Ironically, this argument is used in Eve’s support. The tradition of the thirteenth-century commentaries on the Sentences continues supporting the idea that Eve’s ignorance is due to her weak intellect—sometimes making sounder arguments, sometimes weaker, and often getting rid of the question as quickly as possible. Albert the Great was one of those who did not mention Eve’s weak intellect at all, apparently because he did not feel obliged to do so. In his Commentary on the Sentences, he is worried first about the nature of Eve’s sin: was it arrogance, infidelity, gluttony, or disobedience? Then he asks whether she sinned with one or several sins. Finally, he considers whether she sinned against the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. He concludes that arrogance or pride (superbia) was Eve’s first sin and the cause of her subsequent sins (Sent. II, d. 22.C, a. 1). Thomas Aquinas reappraises this quaestio: “If the woman sinned more seriously than the man (utrum mulier peccaverit gravius quam viro).” The dialectical arguments, i.e., the ones against his position, are worthy of note, since some of them are used by Nogarola in her own dialogue: 1. Both sinned with the vice of conceit; but that conceit resided only in their awry desire to be like God; thus, it seems that both desired the same thing and sinned equally.19 2. Moreover, weakness excuses from sin; but woman was weaker than man, for the Devil, as said above, approached her first; thus, it seems that she sinned less.20 3. Moreover, for that reason, Daemon’s sin is judged more serious than human sin, because the former had a more eminent knowledge of God; but the man was

18  The reading “parvi intellectus” appears in the PL edition (PL 211: 1012C), however, in the 1950 edition, it reads “seducta” (p. 133). 19  Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 1: “Uterque enim elationis vitio peccavit. Sed elatio illa non fuit nisi in hoc quod Dei similitudinem perverse appetierunt. Ergo videtur quod uterque idem appetit, et aequaliter peccaverunt.” 20  Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 2: “Praeterea, infirmitas peccatum excusat. Sed mulier infirmior fuit viro, propter quod Diabolus, ut dictum est supra, eam primo aggressus est. Ergo videtur quod ipsa minus peccaverit.”

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provided with a more spiritual mind than the woman, as it is said explicitly; thus, it seems that he sinned more seriously.21 4. Moreover, since man is responsible for the government of woman; and since, as it has also been said above, the precept was delivered to woman by man; therefore, the woman’s sin has to be imputed to man as well, and he must have made it more serious.22 5. Moreover, to sin out of consideration for divine mercy seems to be a sin of conceit, which is the species of sin against the Holy Spirit, which is the most serious; thus, since the man sinned while thinking about God’s mercy, as is said explicitly, it seems that he sinned more seriously than the woman.23 Aquinas’ answer entails a distinction of gravity in sin, the gravest (potissimum) being that which causes someone else to sin. Hence, the woman sinned moved by her sole conceit (elatio), while man was moved not only by conceit but also, taking the words from Lombard himself, by a “friendly benignity to his wife (amicabili benignitate ad uxorem)” (Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, sol.). According to Aquinas, the reasons stated before mitigate Adam’s sin, since he acts moved by another and not only by himself. Moreover, the pride of Eve was stronger than Adam’s. While Eve’s pride was obdurate, Adam’s was hesitant; accordingly, the woman’s will was perfect in pursuing God’s similitude, while man’s will was imperfect, i.e., under the condition “if it is possible (si possibile foret)” (Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, sol.). Bonaventure himself undertakes a serious analysis of the gravity of the sin. First, he states several kinds of gravity in the dialectical and opposed arguments; then, in the answer, he distinguishes not only among those kinds of gravity, but also their degree. As a conclusion he clearly states that Eve’s sin was graver; however, he surely does not excuse Adam because of his “friendly benevolence.” The modes of gravity are: by ingratitude, by desire, and by consequent corruption. Each of them varies in degree. Regarding ingratitude, man sinned more; regarding desire, woman sinned more; regarding guilt for the consequent corruption, he distinguishes again two modalities, per modum causae and per modum occasionis. According to the former modality, man sinned more because his sin was the cause of its transfer to those who came after;24 while according to the latter, woman sinned more since the

 Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 3: “Praeterea, propter hoc peccatum Daemonis gravius judicatur quam peccatum hominis, quod eminentiorem cognitionem de Deo habebat. Sed vir magis erat praeditus spirituali mente quam mulier, ut in littera dicitur. Ergo videtur quod ipse gravius peccaverit.” 22  Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 4: “Praeterea, regimen mulieris ad virum pertinebat; unde et supra dictum est quod per virum ad mulierem praeceptum delatum est. Ergo videtur quod etiam peccatum mulieris viro imputandum sit, et magis aggravandum.” 23  Thomas Aquinas, Super Sent. II, d. 22, q. 1, a. 3, arg. 5: “Praeterea, peccare ex consideratione misericordiae divinae, videtur esse peccatum praesumptionis, quae est species peccati in spiritum sanctum, quod est gravissimum. Cum ergo vir peccaverit cogitans de Dei misericordia, ut in littera dicitur, videtur quod ipse gravius peccaverit quam mulier.” 24  Bonaventure, Comm. in Lib. Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, q. 3, resp.: “quia peccatum viri fuit causa transfusionis peccati in posteros” (ed. 1885, p. 520). 21

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woman’s sin was the occasion for man’s sin and consequently for those who came after.25 In this first response of Bonaventure, there is a “parity of sexes.” After that, he introduces a second answer, “aliter potest dici,” where he presents other considerations pertaining to the gravity of sin: the conditions of the sinner (peccans)26 and the conditions of the sin itself (peccatum).27 According to the conditions of the sinner, man sinned more due to his excellence; according to the conditions of the sin itself, woman sinned more because she was more impious against God and iniquitous against her neighbour. Again, there is parity. Nevertheless, the gravity of Eve’s sin is greater absolutely speaking (peccatum Evae magis excessit et gravius fuit, simpliciter loquendo).28 From Bonaventure onward, scholastic authors do not always support the position of Peter Lombard in the Sentences about Eve’s sin, although each thinker tries to not contradict the master of the Sentences. Perhaps this is why great theologians such as Scotus and Ockham avoid this question. Indeed, it is likely that, as great logicians, they could identify the weakness of those arguments, such as the “benevolence” of Adam and the fallacy of affirming the consequent in the argument for the gravity of sin.

21.5  E  ve’s Fault: Did She Bite Willingly, or Did She Bite Unknowingly? Within the numerous exchanges of arguments and counterarguments between Isotta and Ludovico, one in particular deserves to be analyzed, because it is the most closely related to scholastic commentaries, where the quaestio about Adam and  Bonaventure, Comm. in Lib. Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, q. 3, resp.: “quia peccatum mulieris fuit occassio peccati viri et ita per consequens omnium aliorum” (ed. 1885, p. 520). 26  Bonaventure, Comm. in Lib. Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, q. 3, resp.: “ex parte peccantis, gravius peccasse dicitur vir quam mulier, tum propter donorum praecellentiam, tum etiam propter status praesidentiam quia mulieri quodam modo praelatus erat” (ed. 1885, pp. 520–521). 27  Bonaventure, Comm. in Lib. Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, q. 3, resp.: “ex parte peccati, gravius peccavit mulier quam vir, tum propter impietatem in Deum, tum propter iniquitatem in proximum” (ed. 1885, p. 521). 28  Bonaventure, Comm. in Lib. Sent. II, d. 22, c. 4, q. 3, resp.: “Quod autem dicit Augustinus, quod pari fasta peccaverunt; hoc intelligitur non quantum ad interiorem affectionem, sed quantum ad exteriorem mandati transgressionem, ad quod uterque eorum aequaliter obligabatur.—Vel par fastus dicitur non per omnimodam aequalitatem, sed per quandam conformitatem. Et sic ex dictis colligitur, quod peccatum Evae aliquo modo excedebat peccatum Adae, et  aliquo modo e contrario.—Si autem aliquis quaerat, quod eorum magis excedebat aliud; ad hoc dicendum est, quod cum peccatum Evae excedat peccatum Adae in conditionibus, quae respiciunt peccatum essentialiter, utpote in maiori improbitate libidinis, in hoc quod et maius et magis ambivit, peccatum Evae magis excessit et gravius fuit, simpliciter loquendo. Et huius signum est, quia magis punita fuit, et si ad  infernum descendisset, maiorem poenam habuisset. Nec obstant rationes ad oppositum adductae, quia sumuntur a conditionibus peccantis, quae non faciunt peccatum gravius simpliciter, sed quodam modo” (ed. 1885, pp. 520–521). 25

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Eve’s sin arises. The argument is framed in topic (b), stated above,29 i.e., the cause of Adam and Eve’s sin. Isotta holds that Eve’s sin was not out of pride, contradicting what Ludovico reminds her of in the passage of Eccl. 10:13 (initium omnis peccati est superbia), but “out of weakness and inconstancy (propter fragilitatem et voluptatem)” (ed. 1886, p. 189, l. 16). In answering her in the pars destruens of his second discourse, Ludovico distorts her words. Indeed, he uses the term “ignorantia,” which Isotta had not used and which does not necessarily follow from her arguments. Ludovico takes the debate to an argumentative position with a long traditional background, i.e., ignorance as an excuse for sin. He holds that, if “Eve sinned out of ignorance and inconstancy (Eva ignorans inconstansque peccavit)” (ed. 1886, p. 192, ll. 11–12), she would not be less responsible; indeed, ignorance of what is obligatory to know does not excuse one, and even less if it occurs through negligence. In fact, he says that Eve sinned from ignorance and inconstancy, from which you conclude that she sinned less seriously. But ignorance—especially of those things that we are obligated to know—does not excuse us. For it is written, “But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” The eyes that guilt makes blind, punishment opens. He who has been foolish in guilt will be wise in punishment, especially when the sinner’s mistake occurs through negligence. (trans. 2004, p. 148, our emphasis)30

Ludovico’s argument calls to mind Abelard’s Confessio Fidei Universis, especially regarding the aggravating circumstance of negligence: “Also, many things done by ignorance must be ascribed to guilt, especially when we ignore what we need to know due to our negligence.”31 Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Ludovico’s direct source was Abelard, or Augustine. Following Gratian, the twelfth-century canonical theologians, among whom was Bandinelli, introduced a distinction between ignorantia iuris and ignorantia facti that would become recurrent among jurists and theologians. Even if not all agree on the extent of the second type of ignorance, most of them agree that the first type, i.e., ignorance of what we are obligated to know, in no way excuses from sin (Lottin 1933, pp. 346–354); Eve should have known God’s commandment. In fact, immediately after, in the dialogue, Ludovico refers to the “iurisconsulti” (ed. 1886, p. 192, l. 20). According to them, Eve’s ignorance came from arrogance. This previous fault does not excuse her, but rather makes her deserve a double punishment: one based on the fault that led her to ignorance, the other based on the fault committed because of ignorance. Although it is not possible to know which jurists Ludovico had in mind, we identify in his argument the tradition initiated by Bandinelli, who asserts, in his Sententiae: “Indeed,  See the statement of the three argumentative topics in Sect. 21.2.  “Eva ignorans inconstansque peccavit, ex quo tibi levius peccasse videtur. Ignorantia eorum praesertim quae scire debemus nos non excusat, quia scriptum est: Si quis ignorat, ignorabitur. Oculos quos culpa claudit poena aperit. Qui stultus est in culpa sapiens erit in poena; praesertim quum error peccantis negligentia occurrit” (ed. 1886, p. 192, ll. 11–18, our emphasis). 31  Peter Abelard, Confessio Fidei Universis VI.2 (ed. 1986, p.  135, ll. 2–4): “Multa quoque per ignorantiam facta culpe sunt adscribenda, maxime cum per negligentiam nostrum contingit nos ignorare quod nobis necessarium erat prenosse.” 29 30

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even if Eve sinned ignorantly because her ignorance came from a precedent guilt, i.e., by conceit (elatione), it follows, she cannot pretend whatsoever to be excused from her sin” (ed. 1891/1969, p. 126, ll. 12–14).32 Ludovico introduces this argument hypothetically, but he rejects the claim that Eve’s sin was committed out of ignorance. In other words, while there are theological and legal arguments to award her full responsibility if that were the case, Ludovico prefers to take a more certain path that would not allow for any sophistry: Eve did not sin out of ignorance, because God let her know his will and she was intelligent enough to understand it. Gen. 3:3 shows that she was smart enough, because the serpent approached her with caution, as if it was intimidated by her.33 Isotta replies to this point in her second set of arguments. Since she is forced to admit the canonical principle that ignorantia iuris does not excuse from sin, her defense of Eve is focused on appealing to an invincible ignorance by nature. Only that kind of ignorance is unanimously considered excused from sin: Eve sinned out of ignorance and inconstancy, and hence you contend that she sinned more gravely because the ignorance of those things which we are obligated to know does not excuse us, […] I would concede your point if that ignorance were crude or affected. But Eve’s ignorance was implanted by nature, of which nature God himself is the author and founder. In many people it is seen that he who knows less sins less, like a boy who sins less than an old man or a peasant less than a noble. (trans. 2004, p. 151, our emphasis)34

To dispel all doubt, Isotta insists further on that “Eve, weak and ignorant by nature, sinned much less” (trans. 2004, p. 155, our emphasis).35 Isotta’s own words allow us to say that, in the first place, this argument has the advantage of clearing Eve of all responsibility; secondly, it attributes responsibility to God who, creating her unable to understand his commandments, was unfair when he punished her for something that was out of her reach. This strategy recalls the one used by the character of the disciple in Anselm’s De Casu Diaboli, who says that it was God who gave the angel the ability to persevere (DCD III). The different objections to this explanation are reviewed by, among others, Thomas Aquinas in De Malo (q. 16, a. 2, args. 12–17). Further in the text, Nogarola indeed holds that the difference between Eve and the fallen angel is that she was redeemed while the angel was not, because the latter could not be excused for ignorance while Eve  “Ita licet Eva ignoranter peccaverit quia eius ignorantia ex precedenti culpa, elatione videlicet, processit, excusationem sui peccati minime pretendere potuit.” 33  “Nescio etiam, quonam pacto tu, quae per tot annorum cursus ab Eva distas, ipsius sensum damnas, cuius scientiam in paradiso a summo omnium rerum opifice divinitus creatam serpentem astutissimum praesentem timuisse scribis, quia non fuit ausus in verba persuasionis prorumpere, sed sub interrogatione eam alloquutus est” (ed. 1886, p. 193, ll. 3–10). 34  “Eva ignorans inconstansque peccavit, ex quo tibi gravius peccasse videtur, quia ignorantia eorum quas scire debemus nos non excusat […]. Concedo, quum haec ignorantia crassa fuerit vel affectata, sed ignorantia Eva a natura fuit insita, cuius naturae ipse deus est auctor et conditor. Nam in pluribus hoc videtur, quia qui plus ignorat minus peccat, ut puer sene, rusticus nobili” (ed. 1886, p. 198, l. 11–p. 199, l. 1, our emphasis). 35  “multo minus peccavit Eva debilis et ignorans secundum naturam” (ed. 1886, p. 208, ll. 15–16, our emphasis). 32

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could: “For the rebellious angel cannot claim to be excused by ignorance, as can Eve” (trans. 2004, p.  153).36 However, this argument in defense of women has a clear disadvantage if it is taken to an extreme: the unimpeachability is correlative to the removal of moral agency. If Eve—and consequently her offspring—were completely ignorant, completely unable to distinguish right from wrong, they would be free from all guilt, but they would then be tantamount to Abelard’s “naturales stulti.” In fact, while not going so far as that, Isotta points to children and peasants as examples. Regardless, even if Isotta had wanted to take this argument to the extreme and make Eve completely unimpeachable, she would not have been able to do so: for the Bible says that Eve was punished—and if there is punishment, there is responsibility, no matter how limited. Here again, we find Peter Lombard’s fallacy of affirmation of the consequent.37 The punishment assigned to Eve in the Bible “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen. 3:16)—limits ipso facto the excuse of natural invincible ignorance and leaves women’s rationality intact. Therefore, Ludovico and Isotta agree that the punishment is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility.

21.6  Some Final Remarks. A Woman’s Perspective The preceding analysis reveals that Isotta’s De Pari aut Impari Evae atque Adae Peccato Dialogus contains many scholastic elements hidden behind its “humanistic veil.” We could list as humanistic features the epistolary-philosophical exchange; the references to early Christian authors (though quoted mostly from scholastic sources); and the preoccupation with female dignity. The latter was a part of the esprit du temps: Boccaccio included Eve in the De Claribus Mulieribus (1362), Christine de Pizan did her part (and contested Boccaccio’s claims) in her Book of the City of Ladies (1405); women slowly started to occupy spaces reserved for men in the educational and intellectual milieu. In juxtaposition to these humanistic elements, scholastic influence is made clear from quoted sources (Aquinas as well as florilegia, manuals or comments of his thought), and from remote sources from which Ludovico’s arguments were drawn (i.e., jurists, masters of the Faculty of Law). Nogarola’s dialogue pioneers in bringing the quaestio regarding Adam and Eve’s sin out from behind university walls and into Italian humanist circles.38 In addition, we must remark that Nogarola’s strategy to prove that Eve sinned less leads to portraying her as weak and inconstant, and accordingly ignorant. Thus, the gain of Isotta’s Eve in the moral field necessarily entails a defeat in the field of knowledge. Conversely, Ludovico’s Eve is superior in knowledge but morally inferior. Thereby, Eve is not permitted to be good and smart at the same time.

 “Nam in angelo non fuit per ignorantiam excusatio, sicut in muliere” (ed. 1886, p. 203, ll. 16–17).  See the fallacy mentioned in Sect. 21.4, (3). 38  A study about Isotta’s dialogue’s subversive character is to be found in Ebbersmeyer (2004). 36 37

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Perhaps, in our contemporary view, the arguments Isotta advances in defense of Eve are quite disappointing—all the more so, as there are other scholastic arguments that could have been used to portray women more favourably, without compelling her to renounce women’s capacity for either moral or intellectual excellence. A line of argument less hostile to women is offered by Bonaventure’s rational argument, which keeps the gravity of sin equal for men and women. But this was a relative answer. In the definitive answer, Bonaventure had to follow the master of the Sentences and did not dare to defy his authority. Perhaps the same verecundia led fourteenth-century logicians to not criticize the master’s arguments. For example, in the Commentaries of Scotus and Ockham this question was not discussed. Did they avoid criticizing the authority of Master Peter, or were they perhaps not even interested in such poor argumentations? With the arrival of Humanism, the scholastic logical tradition in Italy was devitalized and much of scholastic education became dependent on Thomistic manuals, reproducing Lombard’s and Aquinas’ arguments uncritically.39 Nogarola arrives, then, at a moment in time where the issue of Eve’s sin was no longer being debated. Furthermore, she found herself in the worst possible argumentative situation: on the one hand, she had been educated with outdated scholasticism; on the other hand, she was not up to date with the humanist tradition. In spite of that, having all the texts against Eve at hand, she was able to master scholastic argumentation and she proceeded to disarm its reasoning. She succeeds in weaving arguments that subvert those of Peter Lombard, thereby making a case favourable to women. This, then, in her difficult historical and educational situation, is Isotta’s great achievement: a critical subversion of the original sin. Yet, her use of arguments drawn from the scholastic tradition put Nogarola face to face with an unwanted dilemma: that of seeing women reduced to being either evil or ignorant. If we take the biblical metaphor of the tree and the fruit of wisdom as symbols of power, we may say that Nogarola and the Renaissance female intellectuals—indifferent to the punishment they were promised to endure—were empowered by their bite. Having inherited the science of men in a scientific world that was a world of men, Isotta and her contemporaries began subverting its arguments. They were biting the fruit of knowledge.

References Primary Sources Albert the Great. (1894). Alberti Magni Commentarii in II Sententiarum (S. C. A. Borgnet, Ed.). In Opera omnia 27. L. Vives. Ambrose. (1896). De paradiso (K.  Schenkl, Ed.). In Sancti Abrosii opera (Vol. 1). Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 32/1. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

39

 See Jardine (1983) and Garin (1958).

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Augustine. (1891). De utilitate credendi. De duabus animabus. Contra Fortunatum. Contra Adimantum. Contra Epistulam Fundamenti. Contra Faustum (J.  Zycha, Ed.). Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 25/1. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Augustine. (1894). De Genesi ad litteram Liber imperfectus. De Genesi ad litteram. Locutiones in Heptateuchum (J. Zycha, Ed.). Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 28/1. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Augustine. (1985). Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum. Commonitorium Orosii et sancti Aurelii Augustini contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (K. D. Daur, Ed.). Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 49. Brepols. Bandinus. (1855). De creatione mundi et de lapsu hominis (J.-P. Migne, Ed.). Patrologia Latina, 192. Bonaventure. (1885). Commentarium in Libros Sententiarum. In Opera omnia II. Ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) prope Florentiam. Guarino Veronese. (1915). Epistolario di Guarino Veronese, Vol. II (R. Sabbadini, Ed.). PIMS. Hilary of Poitiers. (1980). De trinitate (P. Smulders, Ed.). Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina, 62A. Brepols. Isotta Nogarola. (1886). De pari aut impari Evæ atque Adæ peccato (E.  Abel, Ed.). In Isotae Nogarolae Veronensis opera quae supersunt omnia; accedunt Angelae et Zeneverae Nogarolae epistolae et carmina (Vol. 2). Apud Gerold et socios/Apud Fridericum Kilian. Isotta Nogarola. (2004). Complete writings. Letterbook. Dialogue on Adam and Eve. Orations (M. L. King & D. Robin, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press. Isotta Nogarola. (2013). ¿Quién pecó más, Adán o Eva? (J. Aguilar González, Trans.). ArCiBel Editores. Peter Abelard. (1986). Confessio fidei ‘Universis’ (C. Burnett, Ed.). In C. Burnett, Peter Abelard, Confessio fidei ‘Universis’: A critical edition of Abelard’s reply to accusations of heresy. Medieval Studies, 48, 111–138. Peter Abelard. (2001). Scito te ipsum (R.  Ilgner, Ed.). Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 190. Brepols. Peter Lombard. (1971–1981). Sententiae in IV libris distinctae. Spicilegium bonaventurianum, 4. Ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas. Peter of Poitiers. (1950). Sententiae, Vol. II (P.  S. Moore, J.  N. Garvin, & M.  Dulong, Eds.). University of Notre Dame. Roland Bandinelli. (1969). Sententiae Rolandi Bononiensis magistri (A.  Gietl, Ed.). In Die Sentenzen Rolands nachmals Papstes Alexander III. Brill/Rodopi. (Original work published 1891) Thomas of Argentina. (1585). Commentaria in IIII. Libros Sententiarvm. Apud A Orerium. Thomas Aquinas. (2019). Opera omnia. Corpus Thomisticum. Retrieved from https://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html

Secondary Sources Ardissino, E. (2016). La coppia e la colpa. Adamo ed Eva nella Venezia della prima età moderna. In F. Bondi, P. Gervasi, S. Pezzini, & M. Urbaniak (Eds.), 2: Ricerche e Riflessioni sul Tema della Coppia (pp. 7–21). Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore. Burke, P. (1989). The Renaissance dialogue. Renaissance Studies, 3(1), 1–12. Ebbersmeyer, S. (2004). Zwischen Imitation und Subversion. Der Dialog Über die gleiche bzw. ungleiche Sünde Adam und Evas von Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466). In B.  Guthmüller & W. G. Müller (Eds.), Dialog und Gesprächskultur in Der Renaissance. Harrassowitz Verlag. Garin, E. (1958). Documenti scolastici del XIV e XV secolo. In E. Garin (Ed.), ll pensiero pedagogico dell’Umanesimo (pp. 91–124). Coedizioni Giuntine Sansoni. Grellard, C. (2020). Que m’est-il permis d’ignorer? La foi, l’ignorance et les limites acceptables de l’hétérodoxie. In C. Grellard, P. Hoffmann, & L. Lavaud (Eds.), Genèses antiques et

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médiévales de la foi. Collection des Études augustiniennes. Série Antiquité EAA, 206. Institut des études augustiniennes/Brepols. Jansen, S.  L. (2008). Debating women, politics, and power in early modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. Jardine, L. (1983). Isotta Nogarola: Women humanists – Education for what? History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, 12(4), 231–244. King, M. L. (1978). The religious retreat of Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466): Sexism and its consequences in the fifteenth century. Signs, 3(4), 807–822. King, M. L. (1991). Women of the Renaissance. University of Chicago Press. King, M. L. & Robin, D. (2004). Isotta Nogarola: Complete writings. Letterbook. Dialogue on Adam and Eve. Orations. The University of Chicago Press. Lottin, O. (1933). Le problème de l’ignorantia iuris de Gratien à Saint Thomas d’Aquin. Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, 5, 345–368. Muñoz, M. J., Cañizares, P., & Martín, C. (Eds.). (2013). The compilation of knowledge in the Middle Ages. FIDEM. Parker, H.  N. (2002). Angela Nogarola (ca. 1400) and Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466): Thieves of language. In L.  J. Churchill, P.  R. Brown, & J.  E. Jeffrey (Eds.), Women writing Latin: From Roman antiquity to early modern Europe, vol. 3. Early modern women writing Latin (pp. 11–30). Routledge. Roseman, P. W. (2004). Peter Lombard. Oxford University Press. Smarr, J.  L. (2008). Joining the conversation. Dialogues by Renaissance women. University of Michigan Press. Marcela Borelli  (PhD in philology and hermeneutics, Università del Salento and Universidad Nacional de San Martín, 2014; PhD in philosophy, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 2015) specializes in Renaissance and medieval philosophy and paleography. She is a postdoctoral fellow for Fragmentarium (IIBICRIT CONICET). She is also associate professor of Latin and medieval philosophy at Universidad Nacional de San Martín, and assistant professor of philosophical Latin at Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is also professor of paleography and ecdotics in the MA program in medieval studies at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. She has published in books and journals from several countries. Valeria A. Buffon  (PhD in philosophy, Université Laval) specializes in the reception of Aristotle’s ethics in the Late Middle Ages, particularly in the study and critical edition of commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics from the first half of the thirteenth century. She is a professor at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, a  senior researcher for the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) and a Humboldt fellow of the Universität zu Köln (2020–2022). She has conducted research and taught in several universities, in Canada, Argentina and Brazil. She has published in books and journals from several countries. Natalia G.  Jakubecki  (PhD in philosophy, University of Buenos Aires; specialist in Social Sciences, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences) carries out her teaching work as assistant professor in the chair of history of medieval philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. She is also an assistant researcher for the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET) where her main line of research is the construction of the identity of infidels in literary dialogues written between 1100 and 1500. She has published in books and journals from several countries.

Chapter 22

Why Eve Matters in the History of Feminist Arguments Marguerite Deslauriers

Abstract  This is a response to the paper “The fruit of knowledge: To bite or not to bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s sin and its scholastic sources,” by Marcela Borelli, Valeria A. Buffon, and Natalia G. Jakubecki. It has two aims. The first is to show the importance of discussions of Eve in the querelle des femmes, and so to emphasize the importance of Borelli, Buffon and Jakubecki’s analysis of Nogarola’s account of Eve. A second aim is to highlight the philosophical rigour of Nogarola’s discussion of the culpability of Eve as demonstrated by Borelli, Buffon and Jakubecki, by contrasting it with attempts to exculpate Eve from responsibility that were made in pro-woman works written between the composition of Nogarola’s work (1451) and its publication (1563). Keywords  Isotta Nogarola · Eve · Adam · Bartolomeo Goggio · Lodovico Domenichi · Culpability · Genesis

“The fruit of knowledge: To bite or not to bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s sin and its scholastic sources,” by Marcela Borelli, Valeria A. Buffon, and Natalia G. Jakubecki, makes two important contributions to scholarship on Renaissance feminism, one methodological and one philosophical. The methodological contribution is to demonstrate, through a careful analysis of the citations included in Isotta Nogarola’s Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve, that her sources are for the most part scholastic, even when she refers to earlier Christian and classical authors. This is significant for our investigation of the work not only of Nogarola, but also of other Renaissance authors taking the pro-woman side in the querelle des femmes, who, like her, often relied on fewer sources than their citations might suggest. The identification of their sources (or meta-sources) will illuminate the strategies that they adopted and their reasons for choosing the versions of standard arguments that they presented. The philosophical contribution is to highlight the tension commonly M. Deslauriers (*) Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Chouinard et al. (eds.), Women’s Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73190-8_22

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found in attempts to defend Eve from moral culpability in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, where pro-woman authors found themselves having to allow that Eve may have been intellectually deficient relative to Adam in order to exculpate her from moral responsibility. One aim of this commentary is to show the importance of discussions of Eve in the querelle, and so to emphasize the importance of Borelli, Buffon and Jakubecki’s analysis of Nogarola’s account of Eve. A second aim is to highlight the philosophical rigour of Nogarola’s discussion of the culpability of Eve as demonstrated by Borelli, Buffon and Jakubecki, by contrasting it with attempts made in pro-woman works—written between the composition of Nogarola’s work (1451) and its publication (1563)—to exculpate Eve from responsibility. The first point to make is, perhaps, an obvious one: given that Eve is taken to be the ancestor of all women, establishing her character is a means to establishing the character of all women, identifying their dispositions and their weaknesses; that is why Eve matters. We should note that this is not a peculiarly Christian way of thinking about the sexes or attributing a particular set of features to women as a kind. There is an ancient precedent in the myth of Pandora, of which the most influential accounts are those of Hesiod in Works and Days and the Theogony. In the Theogony men are supposed to have preceded women in creation, and in Works and Days men are created by “the immortals,” but are said to have come from the same origin as the gods (107–176). Women are created only later, when Zeus directs Hephaestus to fashion a being from earth and water, and to “put the voice and strength of a human into it, and to make a beautiful, lovely form of a maiden similar in her face to the immortal goddesses” (Works and Days).1 The being is Pandora, whom Hermes provides with “a dog’s mind and a thievish character” (Works and Days, 67). She was offered to men as a gift, and proved to be a source of anxiety and evil: “it was only after he accepted her, when he already had the evil, that he understood” (Works and Days, 89)—recognized, that is, that woman in the person of Pandora was an evil, despite her charming appearance. The story of Pandora is repeated in the Theogony, with many of the same elements (535–584).2 Hesiod adds that from Pandora all other women are descended. Women are described as a “deadly race” or “tribe” (τῆς γὰρ ὀλοίιόν ἐστι γένος καὶ φῦλα γυναικῶν) (Theogony, 591). In Hesiodic myths, then, men are contemporaneous with the gods, and women are created at a later moment as a distinct kind, and as a form of punishment for men. Pandora herself is described as “a beautiful evil (καλὸν κακὸν)” (Theogony, 585). Since “καλὸν” in this phrase is likely to have strictly aesthetic or sexual import, it does not impute any moral value to Pandora; the implication is that all women, insofar as they are descended from Pandora, are morally worthless, if seductive. In the querelle des femmes, three aspects of the Genesis story of Eve are taken up, in ways that reflect the myth of Pandora: (i) from Eve all women are  This and other translations from Hesiod are from Glenn W. Most’s edition and translation (2018).  Sedley (2009, p. 256) points out that one significant difference between the story of Pandora in the Theogony and in Works and Days is that in the latter women are merely the conduit of evil into the world, whereas in the former women are themselves the embodiment of evil. 1

2

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descended—so the character of Eve is taken to reflect the character of all women; (ii) the time, place and manner of her creation are discussed, in order to establish her worth; and (iii) the question of her culpability in sin is discussed in order to establish the innocence or viciousness of women. In Genesis, the kernel of the passage on Eve’s creation is this: “[…] for the man himself no partner had yet been found. And so the Lord God put the man into a trance, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and closed the flesh over the place. The Lord God then built up the rib, which he had taken out of the man, into a woman. He brought her to the man,” and the man named her “woman” (Genesis 2:20–23).3 The question of Eve’s culpability requires consideration of a number of different passages. We are told that “in the middle of the garden [of Eden] [God] set the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis, 2:9). God puts Adam in the garden, and tells him directly: “[you may not eat] from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:15–17). Only subsequent to that is Eve created. Later, however, when the serpent asks Eve whether God has forbidden them to eat the fruit of any of the trees, she replies, “We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except for the tree in the middle of the garden; God has forbidden us either to eat or to touch the fruit of that; if we do, we shall die” (Genesis 3:1–3). And when she and Adam do eat the fruit “the eyes of both of them were opened and they discovered that they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). Both the manner of the creation of Eve and her culpability in the decision to eat the fruit are significant, because they contribute to the idea that women are a separate kind from men, that this separateness has its origin in the first creation of humankind, and that the purported moral or intellectual infirmity of women can be traced back to the creation of Eve and to Eve’s character. Almost every contributor to the querelle—pro-woman and misogynist—has something to say about Eve. I offer here two examples of pro-woman discussions of Eve which preceded the publication of Nogarola’s dialogue. The first is Bartolomeo Goggio’s polemical treatise De laudibus mulierum (unpublished manuscript, ca 1487), dedicated to Eleonora of Aragon, Duchess of Ferrara; the second is Lodovico Domenichi’s dialogue, La nobiltà delle donne (1549/1552).4 Consider Goggio, who argues in the first book of De laudibus mulierum that Eve is better than Adam (and hence that women are better than men) because of her creation, in several respects. First, Eve was created in a better place (in Paradise, and not in the Damascene Field) (I 4, p. 7). Second, it should not be inferred that woman is more passive than man because Eve was made from the rib of Adam. Goggio

 Translations of the scriptures are taken from The New English Bible (1971).  Goggio’s De laudibus mulierum exists only in one manuscript (British Library, MS ADD 17.415); although the title is in Latin, the text itself is in the vernacular. Lara Harwood-Ventura (2021) has transcribed, edited and translated the manuscript, and added an introduction and notes. Translations from Goggio’s text are by Harwood-Ventura. There is no modern edition of Domenichi’s La nobiltà delle donne; a searchable transcript of the Domenichi (1552) edition can be found on the website Querelle, at http://querelle.ca/presentation-la-nobilta-delle-donne/. Translations from Domenichi are my own. 3 4

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claims that Aquinas makes that assertion, but that it is countered by Duns Scotus in distinction 18 of the second book of the Lectura (I 9, pp. 16–17). Third, since the material from which Adam was made—mud—has less dignity than the human rib from which Eve was made, she, and hence all women, had a material cause superior to that of men (I 9 p. 18). This last argument, in particular, is widespread in the pro-­ woman literature. Eve’s culpability is addressed at length by Goggio in Books VI and VII of his treatise, where he draws on the authority of a number of authors (e.g. Peter Lombard, John Duns Scotus, Al-Ghazali, Plato). Two of his arguments seem to amount to an exculpation not only of Eve but also of Adam. In the first, he aims to show that human beings are subject to disease and death because of their corporeal nature, and not because Eve (or, for that matter, Adam) ate of the fruit of knowledge (VI 7). In the second, he argues that what Eve did cannot have been a sin since it was in accordance with God’s will (VII, Prohemio) and humankind derived great benefits from it (VII 1–7). Again, it is striking that both these arguments establish the innocence of Adam as well as Eve. But Goggio mentions a third reason to believe that Eve in particular should not be held responsible for eating the fruit and the consequent expulsion from Paradise. He claims that Eve was not given the command to refrain from eating the fruit of knowledge; she had not yet been created when God issued that command to Adam, and hence was ignorant of it (VI 7): “we must not blame anything on the woman [i.e. Eve] […] since she was not given any order either to eat or not to eat of the forbidden fruit. She was not formed when this commandment was given to Adam” (p. 134). The point is that Eve’s ignorance is not ignorance due to intellectual infirmity, but due to circumstance. It implies, then, that because Adam was aware of the edict from God, he alone should be held responsible for having eaten of the fruit of knowledge. How should we assess this argument? On the one hand, as we have seen, it is true that in Genesis 2 we are told that God created the tree of life and the tree of knowledge before he created Adam, and that he issued the prohibition on eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam, prior to the creation of Eve; and so it is true that Eve could not have been present when the edict was delivered. On the other hand, in Genesis 3 the exchange between the serpent and Eve includes her admission that “God has forbidden us either to eat or to touch fruit of that [the tree in the middle of garden]; if we do, we shall die.” So it seems that Adam had communicated the prohibition to Eve, or that she learned of it in some other way—but there is nothing in Genesis to suggest that she learned it directly from God, whereas Adam clearly did. Goggio’s argument seems to assume, then, that Adam’s direct knowledge of the edict makes him more, and Eve less, culpable. Consider now the arguments presented by Domenichi in La nobiltà delle donne, beginning, again, with the claim that Eve and therefore by extension all women are better, because Eve’s creation was somehow better. Francesco Grasso (FR) and Mutio Giustinopolitano (MV), two characters in this dialogue, make distinct points in favour of Eve. Since she was the last of the beings created by God, FR argues, Eve must be the most perfect, because “the end is always first in the intention and last in execution, and the woman was the last creature (la ultima opera) that God

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made” (FR at I, f. 20v). In other words, drawing on the theory of final causation from Aristotle, Domenichi’s character argues that Eve, as the last being to be created by God, must be the best, because the end of a process is its perfection. Moreover, MV argues that Eve was created in a better place than Adam (in Paradise rather than the Damascene field), and of better stuff—of human matter, rather than mud (MV at II, f. 95v). So, in Domenichi’s view, Eve was superior to Adam, and hence women as a sex superior to men, because she was created last (a mark of perfection), in a better place, and from better material. As for the moral argument, Domenichi’s pro-woman characters argue that the Genesis story should be interpreted to demonstrate Eve’s superiority to Adam. They claim that the account of the interactions between the serpent and Eve demonstrates her moral strength and intelligence. For example, FR says that “the devil very astutely made the first attack on the stronger place, recognizing that when the first and greater was conquered, there would be no difficulty with the second and lesser, from which it can be understood that the woman is much more constant than the man” (FR at I, ff. 13r–13v). FR uses similar reasoning to argue that Eve was also more intelligent than Adam: that the serpent addressed her first shows that “Eve was wiser than her husband, […] one does not try to deceive the simple-minded, but the wise; that is why the devil did not concern himself with Adam, who he could have overcome whenever he liked—rather he tried the stronger member of the couple (la parte piu forte), knowing that once that was done the other [i.e. Adam] was there for the taking” (FR at I, f. 36r). In other words, that the serpent chose Eve to tempt in the first instance was a sign both of her moral strength, and of her intelligence, since the devil reasoned that if he were able to overcome her reluctance to defy the prohibition, he would have no trouble persuading Adam to do the same. Domenichi’s characters also have several arguments to suggest that Eve was less culpable than Adam. Some of them suggest that while Eve sinned, her sin would not have mattered had it not been for Adam’s action. For example, the character Pierfrancesco Visconte (PF) points out that Adam was the one who acted: “Even though Eve had sinned, until Adam had transgressed the commandment of God, neither one nor the other would have been punished, nor [would] we [have been punished] because of them. The cause of our ruin was the disobedience of Adam, and not the sin of Eve” (PF at II, f. 76v). MV seems to repeat the point, but adds an important detail: “it is true that the simplicity of Eve was the cause of our universal damnation, but also that, if it had not been followed by the disobedience and the pride of Adam, the error would not have been imputed to the Woman” (MV at II, ff. 101r–101v). In order to excuse Eve, MV, like Nogarola, points to her “simplicity (la semplicità)” as mitigating evidence (note the contrast with the character FR, cited above, claiming that Eve was actually less simple-minded than Adam). Moreover, like Goggio, MV says that Eve had not yet been created when the prohibition was given to Adam: “The benediction was given because of the Woman; and the law with respect to the man; I mean the law of wrath and curse, because the fruit of the tree of paradise was forbidden to him [Adam] and not to her [Eve], who had not yet been created, and God wished that she should be free. The man therefore sinned by eating [the fruit], but not the woman; he, and not she, gave us death; and

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we all have sinned in Adam and not in Eve, and we have received original sin from our male father and not from woman, [our] mother” (MV at II, ff. 100r–100v).5 Considering these attempts, written in the century prior to the publication of Nogarola’s dialogue, to argue that Eve was innocent, a divergence appears between Nogarola’s position and that adopted by other participants in the querelle. She took more seriously than her successors the point that Borelli, Buffon and Jakubecki highlight in their paper: that ignorantia iuris, or ignorance of the law, does not mitigate sin (see their Sect. 21.5). Nogarola’s argument that Eve acted from ignorance is founded on the notion of an ignorance “implanted by nature” of which “God himself is the author” (Nogarola 1886, p. 151). In contrast, Goggio and Domenichi (as well as Agrippa) seem to conceive of Eve’s ignorance as an unavoidable lack of awareness of God’s edict (unavoidable because of the sequence of events). It is not a claim about a limited cognitive capacity inherent in Eve and hence all women. What they try to do is to dissociate this lack of awareness from the charge of inconstancy or negligence, so that it is explained not by appeal to an existing vice in Eve, but rather to circumstances (the time of her creation) for which she was not responsible. That interpretation allows them to excuse Eve’s sin without conceding that she was intellectually inferior, but it has the disadvantage of making little sense of Genesis 3. For her part, Nogarola takes a different path, one that makes better sense of Genesis 3, when she argues that “Eve, weak and ignorant by nature, sinned much less” (Nogarola 1886, p. 155). She is claiming that Eve is less culpable than Adam, but implying that she is more ignorant by nature than Adam, and hence reinforcing the idea that men and women are different by nature (if only by degree) and that Eve is less intelligent, even if she is also less culpable.

5  The source of this phrasing is likely to have been Henricus Cornelius Agrippa’s extremely influential treatise, De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Foeminei Sexus (Antwerp, 1529). He wrote: “So then the blessing has been given because of woman, but the law because of man, and this was a law of wrath and curse; for it was to the man that the fruit of the tree had been prohibited, and not to the woman who had not yet been created. God wished her to be free from the beginning; it was therefore the man who committed the sin in eating, not the woman, the man who brought death, not the woman. And all of us have sinned in Adam, not in Eve, and we are infected with original sin not from our mother, who is a woman, but from our father, a man.” However, although Agrippa’s formulation was very influential, the argument did not originate with him but rather with Rodríguez del Padron’s Triunfo de las Donas (Triumph of Women) (1438–1441), and perhaps even earlier. Rodríguez may have been the source of this argument for Goggio as well. Agrippa’s De Nobilitate et Praecellentia Foeminei Sexus was first printed (no publisher cited) in Antwerp, 1529; there is a modern critical edition edited by Roland Antonioli and Charles Béné, with a French translation by Odette Sauvage (Agrippa, ed. & trans. 1990); and there is an English translation, Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, edited and translated by A. Rabil Jr. (Agrippa, ed. & trans. 1996).

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References Primary Sources Agrippa, H. C. (1990). De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus (R. Antonioli & C. Béné, Eds., O. Sauvage, Trans.). Droz. Agrippa, H. C. (1996). Declamation on the nobility and preeminence of the female sex (A. Rabil Jr., Ed. & Trans.). University of Chicago Press. Domenichi, L. (1552). La nobiltà delle donne. Venice: Gabriel Giolito di Ferrari (Original work published 1549). Domenichi, L. (n.d.). La nobiltà delle donne. Retrieved from http://querelle.ca/ presentation-­la-­nobilta-­delle-­donne/ Goggio, B. (1487). De laudibus mulierum. Manuscript, British Library, MS ADD 17.415. Harwood-Ventura, L. (2021). An annotated transcription and facing English translation of Bartolomeo Goggio’s De laudibus mulierum (ca. 1487) [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, McGill University]. Hesiod. (2018). Hesiod: Theogony. Works and days. Testimonia (G. W. Most, Ed. & Trans.). Loeb Classical Library, 57. Harvard University Press. Nogarola, I. (1886). De pari aut impari Evæ atque Adæ peccato (E. Abel, Ed.). In Isotae Nogarolae Veronensis opera quae supersunt omnia; accedunt Angelae et Zeneverae Nogarolae epistolae et carmina (Vol. 2). Apud Gerold et socios/Apud Fridericum Kilian. The New English Bible (D. Ebor, Trans.). (1971). Oxford University Press.

Secondary Sources Borelli, M., Buffon, V. A., & Jakubecki, N. G. (2021). The fruit of knowledge: To bite or not to bite? Isotta Nogarola on Eve’s sin and its scholastic sources. In I. Chouinard, Z. McConaughey, A. Medeiros Ramos, & R. Noël (Eds.), Women’s perspectives on ancient and medieval philosophy. Springer. Sedley, D. (2009). Hesiod’s Theogony and Plato’s Timaeus. In G. R. Boys-Stones & J. H. Haubold (Eds.), Plato and Hesiod. Oxford University Press. Marguerite Deslauriers  is a professor of philosophy at McGill University who works in ancient, renaissance, and early modern philosophy, with a focus on the history of feminist philosophy. She is the author of Aristotleon Definition (Brill, 2007) and Aristotleon Sexual Difference: Metaphysics, Biology, Politics (Oxford, 2021), and co-editor of the Cambridge Companion toAristotle’s Politics (Cambridge, 2013). In 2017 she was a Robert Lehman Visiting Professor at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. She founded McGill’s Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) in 2009, and was its first director. She is working on an edited volume of translations of early feminist works: Equality and Superiority: Texts from Renaissance and Early Modern Europe (under contract with OUP). Searchable transcriptions of some of these texts, and information about the authors and the contexts in which they were writing, can be found at: http://querelle.ca. Deslauriers is a co-investigator in two ongoing collaborative research projects: The philosophical foundations of women’s rights: a new history, 1600–1750 (with Jacqueline Broad, PI and Deborah Brown), funded by the Australian Research Council, 2019–22; and Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy (PI Lisa Shapiro), funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, 2020–27. For more on Marguerite Deslauriers’ teaching and research, see: https://www.mcgill.ca/philosophy/marguerite-­deslauriers

Index of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Names (pre-1600)

A Abelard, P., 220–251 Abgar the Great, 135, 170, 173 Adrastus of Aphrodisias, 135 Aedesius, 191 Aesara of Lucania, 9, 11 Aeschylus, 39 Aesop, 40 Africanus, see Julius Africanus Aganice, 8 Albert the Great, 281, 282, 332, 333 Albinus, 137 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 132–176 Alexis, 32, 33, 55 Al-Ghazali, 323, 346 Ambrose, 327, 328 Amelius, 213 Ammonius, 140, 171, 213 Amphiclea, 180, 182, 212, 213 Anna Comnena, 8 Anonymous of Erlangen, 277 Anselm of Canterbury, 337 Anthusa, 8 Antiphanes, 55 Antoninus, see Caracalla Apollodorus of Athens, 33, 35 Aquinas, T., 277, 281, 285–289, 292–295, 309, 324, 327–330, 333, 334, 337–339, 346 Aresa, 9 Arete of Cyrene, 6, 9–12, 22, 23, 32, 183 Arignote, 9 Aristippus the Elder, 10, 24

Ariston, 180, 182, 213 Aristophanes, 37, 64 Aristotle, 5, 7, 8, 13, 32, 35–42, 48, 51, 52, 54–56, 66, 77, 96, 126, 134, 138, 140, 141, 143, 147, 150, 155, 163, 164, 171, 173, 174, 195, 225–228, 235, 241, 276–278, 283, 284, 287–297, 304, 305, 308, 312, 313, 323, 324, 327, 330, 347 Arius Didymus, 142 Arria, 5 Asclepigenia, 6, 9, 10, 32, 183, 190, 191 Aspasia of Miletus, 5–12, 23, 32, 33, 69 Athenaeus, 34, 35, 37, 40, 54, 55 Augustine of Hippo, 171, 256–258, 326–332, 336 Averroes, 323 Avicenna, 323 Awida, 140, 141, 143, 144, 151 Axiothea, 5, 6, 9–11, 32, 186 B Bacchylides, 33 Bandinelli, R., 331, 336 Bandinus, 328 Bardaisan of Edessa, 133–176 Basil, 174 Battista Pio, G., 104 Behn, A., 128 Beronice, 8 Boccaccio, G., 338 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, 226, 240, 245, 323, 327

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Index of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Names (pre-1600)

Bonaventure, 332, 334, 335, 339 Borgia, G., 104 Bosso, M., 324 Brito, R., 277 Buridan, J., 274–301, 304 C Callias, 49, 87 Caracalla, 140 Carneades, 139, 141, 142, 162 Chaldeans, 134, 136, 140, 147–149, 155, 162, 173 Champeaux, William of, 233 Chilonis, 32 Chione, 181, 182, 212, 213 Chloe, 195 Chrysippus of Soli, 7, 141, 142 Cicero, 10, 104, 106, 139, 142, 162, 214 Clairvaux, Bernard of, 327, 329 Clea, 6, 8 Clearchus of Soli, 36, 37, 42, 51, 54 Clement of Alexandria, 13, 33, 144, 194 Cleobulina of Rhodes, 6, 8–10, 30–57 Cleobulus of Rhodes, 33, 34, 40, 53, 55 Cleodorus, 56 Corinna, 33 Cornelia Salonina, see Salonina Cornelius Agrippa, H., 348 Crates of Thebes, 5, 10 Crates (poet), 33 Cratinus, 32, 33, 49, 54, 55 Cynics, 5, 77 D Damascius, 5, 8, 213 Damiano dal Borgo, 324, 326 Damo, 9 Democritus, 112 Dio Cassius, 10 Diodorus Cronus, 5 Diodorus of Tarsus, 135, 152–154 Diogenes Laertius, 5, 10, 13, 19, 31, 33, 40, 115, 116, 118 Diogenes of Sinope, 24 Diogenianus, 140 Diotima of Mantinea, 5–12, 21, 23, 32 Diotimus of Olympene, 34 Diphilus, 50, 55 Domenichi, L., 345–348 Duns Scotus, J., 346

E Ephrem the Syrian, 136, 137 Epicureans, 103–129 Epicurus, 7, 10, 13, 106, 108, 109, 116, 118, 119, 125, 128 Epiphanius of Salamis, 135, 137, 172 Eudocia, A., 8 Eumetis, 33, 56, 96 Eunapius, 8, 182, 191 Eurydice, 8 Eusebius of Caesarea, 33, 104, 135–140, 142, 145, 146, 152, 170–173 Eusthatius of Cappadocia, 191 Eustratius of Nicaea, 277 F Fannia, 5 Firmicus Maternus, 139, 149 Foscarini, L., 324–330 Fridenperger, 104 G Galen, 138, 150 Gallienus, 181 Garlandus Compotista, 240 Gemina (mother or daughter), 180, 182, 213 Gemistus Plethon, G., 140 George, Bishop of the Arabs, 135 Giles of Orleans, 277 Gorgias, 51 Gorgo, 33 Gratian, 336 Gregora, 8 Gregorius Magnus, 327 Gregory of Nyssa, 10, 174 Gregory the Great, see Gregorius Magnus Grosseteste, R., 277 Guarino Veronese, 322, 323 H Hamartolos, G., 138 Harmonius, 135, 136 Héloïse d’Argenteuil, 5, 8 Hermias, 108, 213 Hesiod, 33, 50, 56, 203, 344 Hesychius of Alexandria, 34 Hieronymus, see Jerome Hilary of Poitiers, 327, 329 Hipparchia of Maroneia, 5–7, 9–11, 14, 32, 72, 96

Index of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Names (pre-1600) Hippo, 6, 8 Hippolytus, 34 Homer, 34, 35, 56 Ḥunyan ibn Isḥāq, 134 Hypatia, 4–7, 9–12, 14, 21, 23, 32, 183, 190–192

N Neoplatonists, 178–217 Nicarete of Megara, 32 Nogarola, F., 325 Nogarola, I., 320–349 Novella d’Andrea, 8

I Iamblichus, 5, 180, 182, 183, 188, 191, 192, 213 Isidore of Seville, 327, 329

O Ockham, W., 295, 303–318, 335, 339 Oenomaus of Gadara, 140 Olympiodorus of Alexandria, 5, 184, 187 Origen of Alexandria, 140, 169–176 Ovid, 110, 117

J Jerome, 33, 136, 137 Jesus, 194, 195 John Chrysostom, 194, 195 John Damascene, 174 Julia Domna, 6–10 Julius Africanus, 135, 170 K Kilwardby, R., 254–272 L Lasthenia, 5, 6, 9–11, 32 Lauro Quirini, 323, 324, 330 Leontion, 5, 10–12, 14, 128 Lombard, P., 327, 330–335, 338, 339, 346 Lucian of Samosata, 35 M Macrina the Younger, 6, 23 Mani, 137 Manichaeans, 137, 171 Marcella, 183, 186–190, 202–204, 208, 213 Marcion of Sinope, 137, 144 Marcionites, 137, 138, 144, 151, 170, 171 Marinus of Neapolis, 182, 191, 192 Matthew the Apostle, 195, 295 Maximus of Ephesus, 190, 191 Maximus the Confessor, 174 Melissa, 9–11 Metrodorus of Lampsacus, 107, 108 Michael the Syrian, 135, 136 Minucius Felix, 13 Musonius, 192 Myia, 9–11, 33 Myro, 8

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P Pamphile of Epidaurus, 8, 32, 53 Panypersebasta, 8 Paul of Tarsus, 194, 195 Paul the Apostle, see Paul of Tarsus Pericles, 7, 69 Perictione I, 9 Perictione II, 9 Peter of Poitiers, 326–330, 333 Philemon, 50 Philippus, 138, 143, 144 Philochorus of Athens, 14 Philodemus of Gadara, 109, 114 Philo of Alexandria, 139, 142, 143, 145, 171, 172 Philostratus, 10 Phoebe, 195 Photius I of Constantinople, 8, 14, 152–154, 172, 173 Phyntis, 9–11 Pizan, Christine de, 20, 322, 338 Plato, 6–13, 21, 31, 42, 60–99, 108–110, 113, 136, 174, 180, 181, 183–186, 195, 196, 202–208, 211, 215, 346 Platonists, 12, 137, 148, 174, 207 Plotina, 5, 7, 12 Plotinus, 140, 171, 178–217 Plutarch, 6, 8, 10, 31–33, 37, 39–42, 52, 55, 56, 119, 138, 142, 182, 186, 192, 211 Pollux, 34, 35 Pomponio Leto, G., 104 Pontano, G., 104 Pope Alexander III, see Bandinelli, Roland Porcia, 5 Porphyry, 5, 11, 136, 138, 142, 182, 186, 192, 211 Praxilla of Sicyon, 33 Prisca, 195

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Index of Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Names (pre-1600)

Proclus, 171, 182, 185, 191, 192, 203, 204, 207, 208, 213 Pseudo-Caesarius of Nazianzus, 138, 139 Pseudo-Clement, 138, 139 Pseudo-Demetrios of Phaleron, 37 Pseudo-Dionysius, 204 Pseudo-Hippolytus of Rome, 136, 137 Ptolemais, 11, 12, 183 Pythagoras, 5, 7, 13, 21 Pythagorean women, 3–16, 32, 65, 96, 183, 189 R Rizzoni, M., 322 Rodríguez del Padron, 348 Rufinus of Aquileia, 172 S Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 5, 8 Salminius Hermias Sozomenus, see Sozomen Salonina, 181, 189 Sappho, 33 Seneca, 31, 125 Septimius Severus, 10, 140 Sergius of Reš’aina, 134, 138 Severus Sebokht, 135 Sinope, 32 Socrates, 6, 8–10, 12, 21, 24, 31, 42, 165, 191 Sophocles, 35 Sosigenes of Alexandria, 135 Sosipatra of Ephesus, 8, 23, 183, 190, 191 Sozomen, 135 Speusippus, 10 Stesichorus, 51

Stoics, 13, 142, 143, 146, 147, 162, 172 Suetonius, 104 Symphosius, 50, 53 Synesius, 11 Syrianus, 37, 182, 213 T Telesilla, 33 Tertullian, 144 Thales of Miletus, 8, 10, 21, 56 Theano I or II, 9–11, 32, 33 Themista, 5, 32 Themistius, 138 Themistoclea, 9, 32 Theodora, 5 Theodore Abu Qurra, 174 Theodoret of Cyrus, 136, 137, 172 Theodorus the Atheist, 10 Theognis, 53 Theophila, 5 Theophrastus, 10, 14, 128, 141 Therapeutae, 172 Thomas of Argentina, 329 Timocleia, 33 Trajan, 5, 12 Trypho, 50, 55 U Ulpian, 8 X Xanthippe, 31, 32, 73 Xenophon of Athens, 31, 32, 72, 73, 184

Index of Modern and Contemporary Names (post-1600)

A Abel, E., 326 Adamson, P., 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 22 Addey, C., 182–184, 187, 188, 191, 192, 196 Amand, D., 134, 138, 139, 142, 152, 153 Annas, J., 13, 64, 71, 94, 96 Asmis, E., 114 B Bergk, T., 34, 39 Bergmann, G., 231, 233 Bianchi, U., 134, 137 Bonelli, M., x, 3–28, 163, 165 Buffière, F., 33, 35 C Calhoun, C., 93 Caluori, D., 205–207 Cavendish, M., 128 Clark, E.A., 195 Craemer-Ruegenberg, I., 276 Craig, E., 41 Crégheur, E., 134, 138, 139, 144, 145 Crusius, O., 32 Cursaru, G., 41 Cutter, B., 264 D de Beauvoir, S., 203 de Libera, A., 230, 233

Deslauriers, M., xiii, 9, 11, 12, 20, 22, 65, 182, 189, 343–349 Diderot, D., 125 Dihle, A., 134, 139 Drijvers, H.J.W., 134, 137, 138, 144, 148–150 du Châtelet, E., 128 E Edmonds, J.M., 34 G Gale, M., 109 Gardner, C., 93, 94 Gigandet, A., 111, 118 Gordon, P., 119, 124, 125 Goulet-Cazé, M.-O., 179, 187, 213 Goulet, R., 41, 187, 193 Gourinat, J.-B., 141, 146 Grotius, H., 140 Guillaumont, F., 183 H Hamnett, I., 54, 55 Harding, S., 92 Harper, V.L., 7, 11, 20 Harry, C., 92 Hartmann, U., 213 Hawley, R., 13, 14, 19, 32, 41, 182, 185, 189, 192 Henderson, J., 49

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Holopainen, T.M., 304–308, 310, 311 Hugonnard-Roche, H., 134, 138 Hutchinson, L., 128 Hutton, S., 19, 25, 26

O O’Hara, J.J, 109 O’Meara, D.J., 188, 204 Osborne, T., 304–308, 311

J Johnston, S.I., 35, 191, 192

P Panaccio, C., 246, 270 Parry, R., 308 Pellò, C., 7, 9, 13, 20 Perler, D., 269, 270 Pietra, R., 32, 41 Polansky, R., 92 Pomeroy, S., 11, 12, 32, 96, 183

K Kant, I., 24, 304, 308 Kidd, S.E., 56 King, D., 134, 139 King, P., 229 Kobusch, T., 304, 308, 314 Koch, I., 161–167, 212 Konstan, D., 107, 108, 113, 192 Konstantakos, I.M., 35, 36, 49, 54, 55 L Lafleur, C., 276, 297 Lane, M., 64, 73, 76, 88 Laurent, J., 212 Le Doeuff, M., 61–73, 88, 91, 92, 96 Lloyd, G., 13, 203 Luz, C., 35, 37, 41 M Marenbon, J., 230–236, 242, 243, 246 Márquez, X., 76, 77 Martin, C., 225, 227, 230–233, 240, 245 Masson, J., 104 Matelli, E., 33, 34, 39, 49, 51 McIntosh Snyder, J., 10 Ménage, G., 4–9, 12–14, 18–20, 22, 23, 41, 213 Michel, A., 67 Morel, P.-M., 105, 116, 118, 119 Morrison, D.R., 67 Müller, S., 304, 305, 309, 312 N Nau, F., 134, 135, 137, 138, 144, 149, 154 Nightingale, A.W., 42 Ninon de Lenclos, 128 Nussbaum, M., 63, 106–110, 116, 118

R Rée, J., 19 Robert, A., 276, 279, 281, 297 Robin, L., 86 Robinson, T.M., 38, 64 Rosemann, P., 332 Rosier-Catach, I., 224, 225 Rowe, C., 65, 74, 78, 79, 82, 84, 85, 87 S Schneider, N., 296 Schüssler, F., 195 Sedley, D., 67, 70, 76, 96, 109, 344 Simons, P., 224, 230–236 Skemp, J.B., 74 Smith, D., 92 Spade, P.V., 246, 304 Speer, A., 276 Städele, A., 11 Stamatellos, G., 206, 207 T Taylor, A., 50–54 Teixidor, J., 134, 136 Thesleff, H., 9, 11 Tresnie, C., 214 Tye, M., 256, 264 U Untersteiner, M., 39

Index of Modern and Contemporary Names (post-1600) V Vassilopoulou, P., 213 Vernant, J.-P., 33, 34, 36 Vlastos, G., 96 W Waithe, M.E., x, 4, 6–12, 14, 18–25, 32, 41, 182 Whittaker, H., 183 Wilamowitz, U. von, 32

Wilks, I., 249 Williams, D.C., 230–235 Włodek, Z., 297 Wossidlo, R., 54 Wright, F., 128 Z Zedler, B.H., 4–7 Zeitlin, F.I., 203

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