Scots Philosophical Association

University of St. Andrews

Aristotle on Relativism
Author(s): J. D. G. Evans
Source: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 96 (Jul., 1974), pp. 193-203
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and the
University of St. Andrews

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2217933 .

Accessed: 22/01/2015 09:51
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press, Scots Philosophical Association, University of St. Andrews are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

THE

PHILOSOPH

QUARTERLY
VOL. 24

No. 96

JULY 1974

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATIVISM

BY J. D. G. EVANS
Let me first state dogmatically the dialectical situation which we shall
be exploring in detail as this paper develops. For Aristotle, Plato was a
realist, Protagoras a relativist. He could view each as presenting his position
in conscious reaction to the other and in the belief that one or other of them
is correct. Yet Aristotle regards the theories of each as seriously defective.
What I want to consider is why Aristotle finds them inadequate, and what
possible position is left for him if he will accept neither of the alternatives.
The situation in which he finds himself is characteristic. Time and again
he prefaces his accounts with a statement of the conflicting answers of his
predecessors, in such a way that even though there is indeed good reason
for thinking them all wrong, there seems to be no scope for any further
answer. It is most important for our understanding of Aristotle's conception
of philosophy to see the manner in which he views his problem and the method
by which he resolves it. The following passage from the Eudemian Ethics
(H 2, 1235b 13-18) tells us much about this:
We must adopt a line of argument which will both best explain to
us the views held about these matters and will resolve the difficulties
and contradictions; and we shall achieve this if we show that the
conflicting views are held with good reason. For such an argument
will most closely accord with the agreed facts; and it will allow the
conflicting views to be retained if analysis can show that each is
partly true and partly false.
In other words, Aristotle wants to preserve the obvious truths of common
sense, and at the same time to do full justice to those aspects of the philosophers' paradoxes which incline us to see something in them. He will

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

194

J. D. G. EVANS

disarm the paradox, by separating the true insight from the outrageous
conclusion which was built upon it. He will also eliminate from the combination of all the views the conflict which presently characterizes it: disagreement will be shown to be the consequence of the distortion of the
importance of some single aspect of the case. We shall see in detail later
how this method operates.
The natural place to look for Aristotle's treatment of relativism is Metaphysics F. In fact I shall be concentrating more on certain other texts.
But I want first to say something about the arguments in r and why I
find them not so interesting as certain other discussions. He is here principally concerned with thinkers who deny the law of non-contradiction. He
includes under this heading Protagoras, on the ground that his relativization
of truth enabled him to allow that p and not-p could each be true for different
persons. Now Aristotle maintains that this law is the most fundamental
principle in reasoning; and he argues that it follows from it that it is impossible for anyone to believe that there is a counter-instance to it. For a
belief that p is contrary to a belief that not-p; and so someone who, for any
substitution for p, believed both, would be in two contrary states. That this
is impossible is a consequence of the law of non-contradiction (Met. F 3).
This is not, of course, a proof of the law. What it does establish is that
the law is fundamental; for it cannot be doubted by one who accepts it,
whatever he claims to the contrary. If it cannot be doubted, it cannot be
proved; and although Christopher Kirwan says that, despite saying this,
Aristotle goes on to try to prove it in Met. 1 4-6,1 he misconstrues Aristotle's
purpose. Aristotle divides those who deny the law into two kinds, those who do
it for the contentious reason of saying something paradoxical, and those
who do it out of a genuine sense of perplexity. The former want to win
an argument. Since their demand for a proof of the law cannot be met,
their denial of it cannot be refuted.2 Even the peritropic argument,3 which
is one of the strongest weapons in the arsenal of the opponent of relativism,
is not conclusive. This argument claims that the statement " all truth is
relative to the individual who believes it " must be itself an absolute truth
-that is, true for everyone; and so if some person denies it, it must be false
for him. It is, then, both true and false for him; and since the relativist
thesis states that no one ever has a mistaken belief, the dissenter's denial
of this thesis constitutes a counter-instance to it. The thesis cannot co-exist
with someone who denies it. But the extreme relativist can break this
argument by denying that his thesis is 'an absolute truth. He can claim
that this thesis is true only for him; and that this is not in the least affected
by the fact that it is false for someone else. In taking this stance the relativist
assumes the life of a plant, as Aristotle says (1008b 10-12). His position
1Aristotle's Metaphysics r, A, E (Oxford, 1971), p. 113.
sSee Met. 1009a 16-23, 1011a 8-25, 1012a 17-21.
3Met. 1008a 28-34, 1012b 13-18.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATIVISM

195

rules out the possibility of rational discussion and thus is trivialized. But
the position is open to him if he wants it.
So Aristotle is not concerned with an opponent of this type. His interest
lies rather with the victim of honest perplexity who thinks he can see something in the reasons for the relativist's position and thus is unable to sleep
safely with the view of the committed realist. This man needs a therapeutic
type of dialectic, which will enable him to see both the nature of the considerations which incline him to relativism and how those considerations do
not in fact promote the conclusion which he is inclined to draw from them.
The majority of the numerous arguments in Met. F 4-6 are of a Platonic
character and in many cases were first suggested by Plato's Theaetetus. In
some ways they seem to go too far in the Platonic direction. Thus the victim
of perplexity needs to be reminded that some things are intelligible and
eternal: he has concentrated too much on perceptible changing things. Now
this is redolent of Plato, with its suggestion that the nature of reality is to
be discovered by attending to the eternal and that the world of flux can be
dismissed as not relevant to the enquiry. Yet Aristotle's point cannot be
quite this, since he asserts that the law of non-contradiction brooks no
exceptions, not even among perceptible, changing things. His point must
rather be to remind the victim of perplexity of something which he knows
well, but has temporarily forgotten, in order to make him question whether
the law of non-contradiction can be broken anywhere. Relativism, if it is
pushed, tends to be supported by reasons of very general scope. So if a
dent can be made in the position in one place, this will lessen its appeal in
other areas also.
Aristotle's major argument in these chapters is based on an appeal to
the notion of essence (r4, 1006a 28-7b 18). The burden of this difficult
argument is that whatever may be the case with other modes in which
subjects can be characterized, at the very least it cannot be the case that
the definition, which gives the subject's essence, both is and is not true of it.
I do not propose to go into this argument. I mention it now because it
raises an idea which will recur in the following analysis.
There is one set of remarks in F 5 which are suggestive of a point which
we will find developed in the passages to which I am going to turn next.
Aristotle jokingly suggests that Homer must have been a relativist because
he describes an unconscious Hector as " lying with his mind on other things "
(this is an acceptable description of unconsciousness in Greek): Aristotle says
" as if those who are mindless have their minds on things, only on different
things " (1009b 28-31). The point of this remark is that relativists do not
admit that people make mistakes or misuse their faculties. For them what
is, on the realist view, the difference between the good and the bad use of
the faculties is just that-a matter of difference without any such accompanying values as the realist imports. Aristotle's use of the word ' mindless '
is suggestive because while this word is used by the realist to describe some-

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

196

J.

D. G. EVANS

one whose mind is functioning poorly, the relativist is able to appeal to its
other-totally privative-sense to argue that the realist's use is self-contradictory: if the activity of mind is not present in just as satisfactory a form
as it is in all other cases, then it is totally lacking.
There is no question that Aristotle is a realist. He says " it might seem
that knowledge is a measure and the object of knowledge is measured . . .
(but) in a way it is knowledge that is measured by the object of knowledge "
(Met. I 6, 1057a 9-12). But he recognizes that realism can go to extremes
which make it as unacceptable as relativism; and it is under this heading
that the criticism of Plato comes. Where Plato goes wrong is well brought
out by a passage in the Topics (Z 8, 146b 36-7a 11), which is a development
of a difficulty which Plato himself indicated in the Parmenides (133b-4e).
In that work Plato presented an argument that if only objects of the same
type are correlative with each other, and if Forms and perceptible particulars
are indeed objects of different types, then the Forms, as objects of knowledge,
must be objects of the Form Knowledge rather than of the instances of
human knowledge which participate in that Form: those instances of knowledge must be related to objects of the same type as themselves-that is, to
the world of perceptible instances.
I could argue that this lamentable conclusion does represent a serious
difficulty for Plato, but not here.4 Aristotle's argument in the Topics runs
as follows. Most of us would think inadequate a definition of desire as
' appetite for the pleasant '; for it ignores the intentionality of desire, the
fact that people may make a mistake and desire what appears to them
pleasant when it is not really so. Therefore we must amend the definition
to include a reference to appearances. But it is not open to the Platonist
to make this common-sense move. For his definitions are considered to be
definitions of Forms; and it is an axiom of his metaphysics that the categories of the real and the apparent exclude each other. As a Form the object
of desire must be real; and so to avoid what is for him the contradiction of
admitting that there exists the real apparent good, he has to deny the name
of ' desire ' to what does not have the really pleasant as its object. If we
strip this metaphysics of its ontological superstructure of Forms, we have
an account which makes it a condition of being an exercise of a faculty that
it does not err in its object. This consequence has the curious effect of
assimilating Platonic realism to the relativism which it is designed to combat.
This, with other aspects of the case, is well brought out in the discussion of
the object of wish in E.N. F 4, to which I,now turn.
A few preliminary remarks are needed. Aristotle regards wish (Bo6X7a7q)
as the faculty which is concerned with the ultimate grounds for action.
This makes it the more natural that the notion of good, the fundamental
value notion, should figure centrally in his discussion. Secondly, Aristotle's
4For this, see my Aristotle's Concept of Dialectic (forthcoming from Cambridge
University Press).

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATIVISM

197

ethics is eudaimonistic; and he would see no sense in the suggestion that a

person could consciously and consistently fail to act in accordance with
what he conceives to be the good life.5
The account starts by recognizing two answers to the question " what
is the object of wish ? ". Both answers seem to promote fatal objections;
and yet between them they seem to represent all the possibilities. We are
in a typical Aristotelian position. The first answer is that it is the good.
This is the Platonic answer; and we have seen that it gives rise to the difficulty that someone who wishes something which is in fact other than the
good, must be claimed not to be wishing at all. For his alleged " wish "
is for something other than that for which all wishes, by definition, are. The
second answer is that the object of wish is what appears to each person to
be good. This answer has the consequence that it is impossible to distinguish
different wishes in order of merit, since there is no common standard by
which to measure them. On this view the object of wish has no definite
nature, since anything might appear good to some individual. Now the
man who has espoused relativism welcomes this consequence; for indeed it
is just what he wants to assert. But Aristotle, in pointing it out, is concerned
not with him but with the person who sees the difficulty in the Platonic
account and thus has good reason to identify the object of wish with the
apparent good.
The basic inadequacy of both accounts is that they force us to obliterate
a distinction which is recognized by common sense and, Aristotle believes,
must be preserved in the true account of the matter. This is the distinction
between the successful and the unsuccessful uses of the faculty of wishing.
We must allow a use to such sentences as ' he wishes, but his wish is wrong '.
But this cannot be allowed on either of the contending accounts. For the
realist such wishes are not wishes at all, since they are unrelated to the
object of wish. Similarly the relativist, by making every act of wishing
equally related to its object, makes all wishes equally good. In this way the
two answers, which looked initially so very much opposed, end up in agreement on the cardinal matter of whether there is the possibility of distinguishing between wishes in respect of their success. This is ironic because the
realist and the relativist believe themselves to be in conflict on this very
point. By dialectically assimilating them, Aristotle shows not only that they
are wrong as judged by the standards of common sense, but also that they
fail in their intention.
Clearly what is wrong is that due recognition is not being made of both
the intensional and the extensional aspects of wishing and its objects.
Granted that nobody would deny, if asked what he wishes, that he wishes
the good, then this shows that intensionally there is just one object of wish
5A third caveat is perhaps needed. None of the talk about 'the good' in what follows conflicts with Aristotle's thesis in E.N. A 6. The good may be enormously complex, and yet still have an utterly definite nature.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

198

J. D. G. EVANS

-the good. But when we attend to the ways in which this opaque description has to be filled in for varying individuals-that
is, when we note the
extensional aspect of the object of wish-we
find diversity of nature in
the object from individual to individual. Although Aristotle's account is
not couched in this modern jargon, it does incorporate this insight. But to
draw this analytic distinction is not to say which party-realists
or relativists
-are right.6 Aristotle's analysis attempts to adjudicate on this issue.
Before moving on to the substance of this analysis, let me emphasize
once again what is and what is not to be expected from it. I have already
drawn attention to Aristotle's remarks in Metaphysics F on the limits to
provability in this area, and urged that his arguments in that work should
be read in conjunction with those restrictions. This must also be borne in
mind in connection with what follows. Those who are prepared to accept
the unacceptable will not be moved by what Aristotle says; but it will, I
maintain, be of interest to those who, recognizing the unacceptability of the
alternative accounts, are disturbed by their inability to find anything more
satisfying.
Aristotle's own account of the nature of the object of wish consists in
showing that the two opposing positions are not as incompatible as they
at first seem. In order to do this he introduces a logical distinction, the
usefulness of which in the present context had gone quite unappreciated by
the proponents of the paradoxical views: this is the distinction between the
qualified and the unqualified forms of a concept. He says that the true and
unqualified object of wish is the good, but the object of each man's wish is
what appears good to him. In the case of the good man appearance and
reality coincide, so that what appears good to him really is so, whereas in
the case of those other than the good man there is a distinction between
what appears good to them and what is good. There are two components
in this analysis. Firstly, there is the formal distinction between the object
of wish in a general and unspecified form and the various objects which
come into view when we consider the actual exercises of the faculty by
individual persons, the objects of each man's wish. The two are not unrelated. For the object of some individual's wish is the object of wish in a
qualified form. It is what appears good to him; and the reason and justificait happens to be-the object of his wish, is
tion for calling this-whatever
of
wish
is the good. But while the two are not
that
the
object
precisely
unrelated, neither are they identical. So Aristotle's first criticism of the
contending parties is that by insisting that the object of wish is either the
good or the apparent good, they oversimplify and reach a situation of false
conflict. Both answers, hedged with the appropriate explanations, must
find their place in the full and sober account of the matter. Secondly,
6G. E. L. Owen, in Aristotle on Dialectic (Oxford, 1968), p. 119, relies overmuch, I
think, on the power of the intension/extension distinction to resolve the issue, and seems
to be led by this over-reliance to the substantively wrong conclusion that Aristotle
regards the apparent good as the object of wish.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATIVISM

199

Aristotle makes his pronouncement on the substantive issue when he says

that the good is the true object of wish and the object of the good man's
wish. With this further component of the analysis he firmly nails his colours
to the realist mast; and he also shows that the object of wish is not to be
understood simply as a general concept, to be specified only when we attend
to details of individuals' wishes and determine the object of each man's
wish, but rather as itself something utterly specific-the good. Indeed, in
this area the vague and general concept is rather that of being the object
of someone's wish, since there is no control over the diversity of objects
which can satisfy this description.
A parallel case will illustrate both the nature and the scope of Aristotle's
reply to the extreme and paradoxical accounts of the relation between the
faculty of wish and its object. In gunnery we have a connection of persons
and objects by means of the faculty of shooting. In order for the letting off
of guns to qualify as an exercise of shooting, there has to be a special object
-the target-to which the guns are essentially related. So here we have two
elements-shooting and a target-which are related to each other in the
same way as are wishing and its object. Now realism and common sense
tell us that there is scope for distinguishing between good and bad shooting,
for allowing that while some shots may hit the target, others may miss it.
But on the basis of certain aspects of the account of the relation between
shooting and targets given above, it is not difficult to construct a thesis
which disallows this possibility. On the one hand, the extreme realist maintains that the object of every shot is the target. But it seems clear that the
gun of the person who makes a poor shot is not in fact directed at the target,
whatever he thinks or intends to the contrary; and so we have to say that
whatever he thinks or intends, such a person is not in fact shooting. On the
other hand, the extreme relativist maintains that the object of each shot,
whatever it is directed at, is its own target. This thesis preserves the correlation of shots and targets, which had also been respected by the extreme
realist, and preserves the claim that the poor shots are really shots, which
the extreme realist had been forced to deny. But, of course, on this account
every shot will hit its target; and so the scope for characterizing any shot
as " poor " is removed.

As with the conflicting accounts of the nature of the object of wish, both
these accounts of the object of shooting obliterate the distinction between
the successful and the unsuccessful performances of the exercise. Here also
there are extremists who will not be disturbed to see shooting as an all-ornothing matter and not, as most of us suppose, an exercise which is subject
to variation in degree. But it is, I hope, less controversial than in the case
of the object of wish that something has gone wrong here. Once again, to
say that both accounts founder because they ignore the element of intention
(the aim) in shooting is true but less than adequate. It is, in fact, only in
areas where intention operates that paradoxes of this type can arise. Con-

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

200

J. D. G. EVANS

sider the following very different type of case. When a number of rivers
flow from the heartland of a continent, some converge to enter the sea from
the same mouth, but others make their way to the sea independently. Here
we may speak of the rivers' " object of seafall" ; but there is no inclination
here to produce paradoxical accounts of the nature of this or of these objects,
or indeed to see any problem in this area. So we recognize that what gives
rise to the problem in the problem cases with which we are concerned is the
occurrence within them of aims and intentions. But even when we allow
this, we still have a real problem in providing an analysis which will not
disqualify the unsuccessful exercises of the faculties from being exercises of
that faculty at all, irrespective of what is claimed for them by their perpetrators or by other observers. Aristotle's account suggests a way to do
this. In the case of each of the poor shots we must say that it is related not
to the target but to its target. Thus its object is not simply and without
qualification the object of shooting; but neither is it something which is not
in any way a target. Moreover, the relation between a qualified target of
this sort and the target is a matter which is open to objective investigation.
We can determine why some shots have gone wrong ;7 and we can also rule
that certain gun-firings are related to objects themselves so unconnected
with the target that these are not shots at all. That is, we have the scope
for distinguishing the problem cases-the poor shots-from, on the one
hand, the good shots and, on the other, the non-shots. The account preserves
the notion, so essential to a realist view, of the target, and thus preserves
the distinction between good shooting, which hits the target, and bad
shooting, which does not. It does not infringe the requirement that there
must be an essential relation between a shot and a target. An oversimple
interpretation of this requirement led the proponents of the extreme positions
to their distorted views of the matter. But the distinction between the
unqualified and the qualified forms of being a target enables us, following
the indications provided by Aristotle's analysis of the object of wish, to take
a more complex view of the relation between shots and targets. Now it is
no longer essential that there should be a relation between every shot and
the (unqualified) target, at least not the same relation as exists between the
good shot and the target.
My purpose in developing this account of shooting as a parallel to Aristotle's account of wishing has been to show how moves similar to those made
by the contending parties in the latter debate lead to positions which will
immediately strike the victim of honest perplexity as unacceptable. However, the effect of the comparison can be two-edged; and this promotes a
consequence which is both unfortunate and interesting. The metaphysics of
gunnery is, in a way, an area too little infested by controversy for the comparison to be fully useful. The notion of the target-as the object which is
7Aristotle suggests this idea in a very brief and general way at E.N. 1113a 33-5;
cf. also 1147b 6-9.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATVSM

201

hit by some but not necessarily by all shots-is so well entrenched in our
discourse that there is an implausibility both in the development of the
paradoxical positions which make all shooting successful and in the presentation of the notion of the qualified target, which is designed to disarm these
implausible paradoxes. This is unfortunate insofar as it reduces the power
of the comparison to illuminate the apparently more problematic area of
wishing. But it is also interesting, in that it throws further light on a metaphilosophical issue which has been of central importance in this paper.
Aristotle would, I am sure, regard the facts in the area of wishing as essentially no more problematic than they are with shooting. He would say that
we are very well able to distinguish good from bad wishing, as we are good
from bad shooting, even though in the case of wishing the target is not
established by decree. But ordinary discourse does not supply an expression,
analogous to 'the target', to indicate the special and definite character of
the object of wish; and this both opens the way for the contentious relativist
to maintain that it has no definite character, and lulls the unwary into
thinking that what he says may be right.
The situation under analysis is one in which the roles of faculty and its
object both need to be kept in proper perspective. The contending parties
go wrong by overemphasizing one element of the relation at the expense of
the other. The extreme realist is right to insist on the independence of the
object of the faculty from any particular exercise of it. But this position
can lead to one which divorces the object from all exercises of the faculty,
as we have seen in connection with the difficulties in the Parmenides and
the Topics. The extreme relativist overcorrects this defect by making the
exercise of the faculty a defining criterion of its object. How much, and how
little, Aristotle is prepared to concede to this position is indicated by his
assertion that where the objects of human faculties are concerned, the good
man is marked by his ability to see the truth and is like a standard and
measure.8 The Protagorean echo here cannot be unintended; but Aristotle
tempers the relativist position by speaking of the truth and the good man.
The latter is, moreover, only like a standard measure. Now if Aristotle were
defining the object of wish by reference to the good man, his account would
be viciously circular, since we have no way of determining the identity of
the latter except by reference to the former. Rather, he must be asserting
that it is a necessary characteristic of the object of wish that it be the object
of the good man's wish. To see the point of this, we have to remember the
consequences of the extreme realist's ignoring this fact and of the extreme
relativist's over-reaction to his opponent's position. It is an inevitable consequence of the type of therapeutic dialectic which Aristotle is practising
in the present analysis that any of his remarks, when taken by itself and
not thought through in terms of its part in the whole account, should seem
to provide support for the position of either of the contending parties.
8E.N. 1113a 31-2.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

202

J. D. G. EVANS

I noted earlier that the major argument against relativism in Metaphysics

T is based on the notions of definition and essence. These notions have
continued to be anathema to committed relativists and a stumbling-block
to those whose commitment to realism is unsure. But they lie at the basis
of the ontological expression which Aristotle gives to his realism; and I
want to conclude by briefly considering a discussion in which Aristotle
resolves a problem about definition in a manner similar to that in which he
tackles the difficulties about wishing. The passage is from the Topics (Z 4,
141a 26-2a 16); and as we would expect, given the character of the work,
the dialectical aspect of the analysis is even more apparent than in the
Ethics. Aristotle's advice at the end of the discussion to " make precise
each of such distinctions and use them to advantage in one's dialectic" is
not an invitation to the contentious to be self-serving but a reminder that
one needs to be sensitive to the context of the dispute when one treats
issues of this type.9
The discussion takes its start from two basic theses about definition.
The purpose of definition is to instruct us as to the nature of the thing under
consideration, and definition must give an account of that thing's essence.
An immediate consequence of this second requirement is that as each thing
has a single essence, so it has only one definition. Thus insistence on the
realism implicit in the essentialist thesis rules out the possibility that definitions of the same thing should be graded as better or worse: only the best
will do at all.
It should by now be clear that Aristotle will not be content to leave the
matter there, with definition viewed simply as an all-or-nothing matter. For
attention to the other requirement for definitions-that they be instructive
-reveals a complexity which needs to be reflected in the full account. It
is part of Aristotle's realism that he believes there to be a natural order in
which certain things are more intelligible than others, and that the components of a thing's essence are prior in this natural order of intelligibility
to the thing itself. The former are without qualification more intelligible
than the latter; and they are also, as with the (unqualified) object of wish,
more intelligible to the man of sound understanding. So far, then, there is
no problem in an unadulterated realist account, since the man of sound
understanding is instructed by the definition which presents the essence of
the thing concerned. But what is without qualification intelligible may not
be so to someone whose understanding is not sound. If he finds more intelligible an account which describes the thing in terms other than its
essential components, he will not be instructed-or will be less well instructed
than he might be-by the only account to which the realist will allow the
title of " the definition ". Aristotle will not relax the restriction on what
may count as a definition.10 But he does recognize that such a sub-definitory
9142a 12-13.
10142a 6-8.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ARISTOTLE

ON RELATIVISM

203

account should be provided where the audience is of less than sound understanding, and he describes someone who does this as " defining ".11
Aristotle is mainly concerned to combat a relativist view which, exploiting the fact that what is intelligible to one man may not be so to another,
would call "a definition " any account which happened to instruct some
individual, irrespective of the success with which it portrayed the nature of
the thing concerned. This view is fatal to essentialism and unacceptable to
the realist if he believes that things have definite natures which can be
approached by a process of rational discovery, however haltingly and however much provision has to be made along the way to discovery for accounts
which cannot yet be regarded as the definition. But the realist who does not
make this provision pays the Platonic price. He makes success an all-ornothing matter, and has to say that the person who is not in complete
contact with reality is not in contact at all. Aristotle is less exclusive as to
which performances should be counted as defining. He makes more allowance for the part played by human faculties in the relation between them
and their object than does the Platonist; and in doing so he shows the
victim of honest perplexity that an unpalatable relativism is not the only
alternative to an only slightly less unpalatable realism.
I maintain that in these two accounts in the Ethics and the Topics we
have a good example of the way in which the realist can deal with the
relativist without himself going to unacceptable extremes. He cannot refute
him; but he can disarm him. He can show the person who feels moved by
the force of the relativist's argument that it does indeed force us to preserve
the role of the cognitive subject when we discuss how things are, but that
this does not mean that these subjects determinehow things are.
The discussions are brief, and this disguises their importance. Some find
them trivial, some find them false. This disagreement in itself shows their
importance, and I think that Aristotle would reply to those who find them
trivial that they have not sufficiently felt the lure of the extreme accounts,
and to those who find them false that they have felt that lure all too well.
My thesis is that they make an important philosophical contribution, as
well as telling us much that is fundamental in Aristotle's philosophy and
metaphilosophy.12
Sidney Sussex College,Cambridge

11141b 23.
12Versions of this paper in its latest metamorphosis were given in 1973 at the University of Georgia, Athens, the University of Oklahoma, Norman, and the University
of California, Berkeley. I have benefited from comments on all those occasions.

This content downloaded from 168.176.5.118 on Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:51:50 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions