GRICE E VALERIIS

 Some time ago the idea occurred to me that there might be two distinguishable disciplines each of which might have some claim to the title of, or a share of the title of, Metaphysics. The first of these disciplines I thought of as being categorial in character, that is to say, I thought of it as operating at or below the level of categories. Following leads supplied primarily by Aristotle and Kant, I conceived of it as concerned with the identification of the most general attributes or classifications, the summa genera, under which the various specific subject-items and/or predicates (predicate-items, attributes) might fall, and with the formulation of metaphysical principles governing such categorial attributes (for example some version of a Principle of Causation, or some principle regulating the persistence of sub-stances). The second discipline I thought of as being supracategorial in character; it would bring together categorially different subject-items beneath single classificatory characterizations, and perhaps would also specify principles which would have to be exemplified by items brought together by this kind of supracategorial assimilation. I hoped that the second discipline, which I was tempted to label "Phil-osophical Eschatology," might provide for the detection of affinities between categorially different realities, thus protecting the principles associated with particular categories from suspicion of arbitrariness.  In response to a possible objection to the effect that if a pair of items were really categorially different from one another, they could not be assimilated under a single classificatory head (since they wouldbe incapable of sharing any attribute), I planned to reply that even should it be impossible for categorially different items to share a single attribute, this objection might be inconclusive since assimilation might take the form of ascribing to the items assimilated not a common attribute but an analogy. Traditionally, in such disciplines as theology, analogy has been the resort of those who hoped to find a way of comparing entities so radically diverse from one another as God and human beings. Such a mode of comparison would of course require careful examination; such examination I shall for the moment defer, as I shall also defer mention of certain further ideas which I associated with philosophical eschatology.  For a start, then, I might distinguish three directions as being ones in which a philosophical eschatologist might be expected to deploy his energies:  The provision of generalized theoretical accounts which unite specialized metaphysical principles which are separated from one another by category-barriers. Fulfillment of such an undertaking might involve an adequate theoretical characterization of a relation of Affinity, which, like the more familiar relation of similarity, offers a foundation for the generalization of specialized regularities, but which, unlike similarity, is insensitive, or has a high degree of insensitivity, to the presence of category-barriers. To suggest the possibility of such a relation is not, of course, to construct it, nor even to provide a guarantee that it can be constructed An investigation of the notion of Analogy, and a delineation of its links with other seemingly comparable notions, such as Metaphor and Parable. Can this list be expanded? At this point I turn to a paper by Judith Baker, entitled "Another Self': Aristotle On Friendship" (as yet unpublished). On the present occasion my concern is focused on methodological questions; so I propose first to consider the ideas about methodology, in particular Aristotle's methodology, which find expression in her paper, and then to inquire whether these ideas suggest any additions to the prospective subject matter of philosophical eschatology.  (1) Judith Baker suggests that Aristotle's philosophical method, which is partially characterized in the Nicomachean Ethics itself as well as in other works of Aristotle, treats the existence of a common consensus of opinion with respect to a proposition as conferring atleast provisional validity (validity ceteris paribus) upon the proposition in question; in general, no external justification of the acceptance of the objects of universal agreement is called for. This idea has not always been accepted by philosophers; to take just one famous ex-ample, Moore's attachment to the authority of Common Sense seems to be attributed by Moore himself to the acceptability of some principle to the effect that the Common Sense view of the world is in certain fundamental respects unquestionably correct. Unfortunately Moore does not formulate the principle in question, nor does he identify the relevant aspects. If my perception of Moore is correct, he would in Aristotle's view have been looking for an external justification for the acceptance of the deliverances of Common Sense where none is required, and so where none exists.  (2) Though no external justification is required for accepting the validity of propositions which are generally or universally believed, the validity in question is only provisional; for a common consensus may be undermined in either of two ways. First, there may be a common consensus that proposition A is true; but there may be two mutually inconsistent propositions, B, and B, where while there is a common consensus that either B, or B, is true, there is no common consensus concerning the truth of B, or the truth of By; there are, so to speak, two schools of thought, one favoring B, and one favoring B,. Furthermore (we may suppose), the combination of B, with A will yield C,, whereas the combination of B, with A will yield Cz; and C, and C, are mutually inconsistent. In such a situation it becomes a question whether the acceptability of A is left intact; if it is, a method will have to be devised for deciding between B, and B2. (The preceding schematic example is constructed by me, not by Aristotle or Judith Baker.) Second, to cope with problems created by the appearance on the scene of conflicts or other stumbling blocks the theorist may be expected to systematize the data which are vouched for by common consensus by himself devising general propositions which are embedded in his theory. Such generalities will not be directly attested by a consensus, but their acceptability will depend on the adequacy of the theory in which they appear to yield propositions which are directly matters of general agreement. When an impasse (aporia) arises, the aim of the theorist will be to eliminate the impasse with minimal disturbance to the material regarded as acceptable before the impasse, including the theoretical generalities of the theorist. Judith Baker claims that a typical example of such an impasse is recognizedby Aristotle as arising in connection with friendship; the threefold proposition that in the good life no good is lacking, that the good life is self-sufficient, and that the possession of friends is a good, each element in which is a matter of general agreement. This seems to validate the inconsistent proposition that the good life both will and will not involve the possession of friends. It is Judith Baker's suggestion that Aristotle's characterization of a friend as another self (another me) is a serious theoretical proposal which is designed to eliminate the impasse with minimal disturbance.  (3) Judith Baker mentions also a certain kind of criticism, an example of which, leveled at Socrates's treatment of justice in The Re-public, was produced about twenty years ago by David Sachs. Sachs complained that in response to a request from Glaucon and Adeiman-tus to show that the just life is a happy life, Socrates first recharacter-izes the just life in terms of the conception of a soul in which all elements maximally fulfill their function and then argues that a life so characterized will be a happy life. This response on the part of Socrates is guilty of an ignoratio elenchi; what Glaucon and Adeimantus want Socrates to show to be happy is the just life as understood to be the life to which the word "just" applies in its ordinary sense, but what Socrates does is in effect to redefine the notion of the just life as that life which exemplifies justice where justice is defined in terms of fulfillment of function. But that the just life is happy is not what Socrates was asked to show; what is wanted from him is a demonstration not that the just life is happy but that the just life is happy; and this he fails to provide. There seems plainly to be something wrong with this line of criticism; Sachs calls Socrates to task for exhibiting in his rejoinder just those capacities which have earned him his reputation as an eminent ethical theorist, which are indeed the very capacities the presence of which has marked him out as a specially suitable person to respond to the skepticism of Thrasymachus.  Surely he cannot be debarred from using just those talents which he has been more or less invited to use. There is the further point that the mode of criticism with which Sachs assailed Socrates could be adapted for use against any theorist of a certain very general kind, which could embrace many theorists who have no connection at all with philosophy; in fact, I suspect that any theorist whose theoretical activity is directed toward rendering explicit knowledge which is already implicitly present would be vulnerable to this kind of charge of having "changed the subject." So it seems to me that a detailed anal-ysis of the illegitimacy of this kind of criticism would be both desirable and at the same time by no means easy to attain.  The reflections in which I have just been engaged, then, suggest to me two further items which might be added to a prospective subject matter of philosophical eschatology, should such a discipline be allowed as legitimate. One would be a classification of the various kinds of impasse or aporia by theorists who engaged in the Aristotelian undertaking of attempting to systematize material with which they are presented by lay inquirers, together with a classification of the variety of responses which might be effective against such im-passes. The other would be a thoroughgoing analysis of the boundary between legitimate and illegitimate imputations to a theorist of the sin of "having changed the subject." Beyond these additions I have at the moment only one further suggestion. Sometimes the activities of the eschatologist might involve the suggestion of certain principles and some of the material embodied in those principles might contain the potentiality of independent life, a potentiality which it would be theoretically advantageous to explore. This further exploration might be regarded as being itself a proper occupation for the eschatologist.  One example might be a further examination of the theoretical notion of an alter ego, already noted as a notion which might be needed to surmount an impasse in the philosophical theory of friendship. Another example might be the kind of abstract development of such notions as movement, that which moves, and that which is moved, which is prominent in Book 1 of Aristotle's Metaphysics, which forms a substantial part of what is thought of as Aristotle's Theology.  I shall not, however, at this point attempt to expand further the shopping list for philosophical eschatology. I shall turn instead to a different but related topic, namely the possibility that in Plato's Republic we find a discussion of justice which does as it stands, or would after a certain kind of reconstruction, serve as an example of an application of philosophical eschatology. I shall first develop this idea, and then at the conclusion of my presentation furnish a summary account of its argument.