RichardSorabji,Self:AncientandModernInsightsaboutIndividuality, LifeandDeath

RichardSorabji,Self:AncientandModernInsightsaboutIndividuality,Lifeand Death

byPterLautner

Source: Rhizai.AJournalforAncientPhilosophyandScience(Rhizai.AJournalforAncientPhilosophyand Science),issue:V.1/2008,pages:209222,onwww.ceeol.com.

Richard Sorabji, Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life and Death, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006 (pp. xi + 400, ISBN 0-19-926639-5 [hb])

The main purpose of Sorabjis work is to examine the ancient Greek and Roman theories of the self, but it discusses both Indian and modern European theories as well. The book divides into seven parts, each containing further subdivisions. It also contains a chronological table of main thinkers, a select but extensive bibliography, general index and an index locorum. The rst, introductory part deals with general issues, describing what the author means by self . What he postulates is not an immaterial ego or undetectable soul, but an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see (p. 4). This individual is endowed with both psychological and bodily states, though none of these are to be regarded as an essence. There are many theories that reject this concept of the self, some of them arriving at a disembodied entity, such as the Cartesian res cogitans or a Platonic soul, whereas others denied the existence of the self altogether. Sorabjis aim is not to examine these doctrines critically. The exception he allows for is the view that there is only an embodied stream of consciousness and that there is nothing that has or owns this kind of consciousness. It is just a mere way of talking that we assign our conscious states to a bearer. One argument for the existence of an owner of these states has been drawn from modern developmental psychology, corroborated by autopsy, and it says that infants could not even survive if they do not see the world in terms of relationship to them. So far, the line of thought does not seem to be of historical relevance. So the question is this: how does ancient philosophy come into play? Is there perhaps an ancient concept of the self? The answer is that even if there was no systematic account of the self, the philosophers were very much interested in the idea of the individual, considered from the rstperson point of view as me (p. 32). The use of pronouns and words like atj may also show that the concept of self was not alien to these authors. Many Platonists come up with a notion of a disembodied individual, the human soul, which is far from the notion advocated by Sorabji. Others, however, defended a view according to which there is an embodied individual or an aspect of the embodied individual, which deserved to be called its self. Part One is closed by a list of sixteen examples of ancient views. They range from Homer to St. Augustine and serve as a preliminary to the issues to be discussed. The rst
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lesson to draw is that the self cannot be equated with the person and the human being, and that we cannot deny that the early Greeks too were thinking of themselves in such a way. Part Two discusses the problem of personal identity over time, related to the possibility of being the same person in eternal recurrence, resurrection and teletransportation. All the three notions depend on the Aristotelian question of whether the same matter or same form is needed for the identity of person. Biological growth is considered to pose a problem for the persistence of the individual. On the Growing Argument, every adduction or subtraction involves a change of the identity of the thing in question. Aristotle intends to resolve the query by distinguishing matter and form, and this leads him to conclude that the nutriment accedes not to every part of the matter, but to every part of the form (GC I.5 321b2234). It is the form of individual body that persists in the process of growth and diminution (GC I.5 322a3033). The problem featured not only in the commentary tradition. It was intensied by Academic sceptics criticizing Stoic assumptions. The fourfold division of categories helped the Stoics to respond to the critique; they stressed that it is not the underlying matter of the person that undergoes growth, rather the distinctively qualied entity itself. In Pseudo-Simplicius interpretation, this is an individualized form (tomwqn edoj, in DA 217.36218.2 = SVF II.395). Aristotle also rejects that people (and things in general) return to existence not as numerically the same individuals, but the same only in form (Physics V.4). His remarks fuelled the Peripatetic criticism of the Stoic notion of eternal recurrence. The Stoic distinction between things that are numerically the same in each period, and events that are repeated and only qualitatively the same, was by and large ignored by Alexander of Aphrodisias, who instead concentrated on problems concerning the notion of distributive quality which applies to events and things alike (in An. Pr. 180.3336, 181.2531). Sorabji argues that the Stoics think, not of the numerical identity of the distinctive quality in dierent periods, but of their mere indistinguishability. The law of the identity of indiscernibles does not apply to distinctive qualities, only to individuals although, I must add, the reasons are not clearly stated. Another solution is to make a distinction between sameness of essence and the numerical sameness of me (p. 68). If reduplication of essence is not enough to produce someone who is a numerically same me, then the thesis of there being a numerically same me in each world cycle proves to be unjustied. Among Christians the same problem comes up in accounting for the resurrection of the body, and aggravated by the infamous food-chain argument. One solution, supported by Origen, relies on the existence of the pneumatic body, the soul-vehicle, which can take the

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soul into dierent physical bodies, thus providing the possibility for the same self to be resurrected in a numerically dierent body. Modern analogues of this theory deal with teletransportation and brain transplant. Sorabji examines Chrysippus denial that two individuals with distinctive qualities could occupy the same matter (or substance) in the context of the thesis that survival cannot depend on what happens to someone else. He oers two solutions. We can say either that the two footed person whose leg gets amputated remains alive and the one with one foot remains dead, or that the loss of one leg in Dion cannot lead to the renascence of Theon since coming to be is not a relational matter. The latter point has been corroborated by the insistence on the unshareable nature of their unique quality. These arguments directly lead over to the investigation into the modern notion of ssion, and to the criticism of Parts thesis that what matters in identity is not the sameness of person, but a certain psychological connectedness and continuity. Locke also focused on psychological links as a criterion of personal identity, but his doctrines were echoed by Epicurean and Stoic writers in antiquity too. Lucretius (DRN III.849.) endorsed the idea that if by chance our atoms were reassembled in the same arrangement, we might exist again. The suggestion is rejected with the argument that the continuity of memory has been broken. Sorabji brings Lucretius remarks closer to Locke by stressing that retention of memory is necessary for personal identity (pp. 9798). This is not to say that memory must be actually exercised, only the possibility of its being exercised is needed. The third part examines the various Platonic views about impersonal selves and the dierentiation of disembodied intellects. In making reason the true self Plato gets close not only to making the self impersonal, but also to depriving it of individuality. In Alcibiades I 130b35 at t at is distinguished from at kaston, interpreted as a distinction between the true self and the individual. Plato vacillates as to whether the true self is the soul as a rational entity (Phaedo) or the rational part of the soul (Republic IX). Aristotle seems to follow him in this, although Sorabji warns us that he does it with qualications. Plotinus is sensitive to these problems since he contrasts the true man and the we, the latter referring either to the rational part of the soul or to this and the spirited part together. One possible consequence of identifying the true self with the intellect is that it will not be individual. One of Plotinus answers is that our souls have vehicles with distinctive shape which enables one soul to recognize the other. The other is that even if the vehicle is spherical, like the stars as vehicles for the rational souls, we could display our character (qh) and distinctive behaviour (dithj tn trpwn). But what happens if we reach the intelligible world? How can our soul distinguish other souls? As the same soul

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that used to dwell Pythagoras body can descend into Socrates body, the soul itself cannot be responsible for the distinction between the two persons. This may raise a further problem (p. 123): if the rational soul is the most characteristic human self and Socrates is a reincarnation of Pythagoras, how can Socrates be a dierent individual from Pythagoras? If he is dierent, how to explain the root of the dierence? If, on the other hand, they are not dierent individuals, a view required by consistency, then we may need further qualication as to how the two could be the same individual. To preserve individuality for souls in the intelligible world Plotinus proposes two theses: souls attend to dierent aspects of the intelligible world, which also explains our dierent memories, and our souls are parts of the intelligible world as theorems are part of a larger science. A theorem is distinct but contains all the higher premises in that science as well as those theorems that come below it. On turning to the question of what dierentiates the individuals, Sorabji lists three answers: distinctive qualities, place and matter and these criteria are interrelated. The idea that the individual is a unique bundle of characteristics goes back to Aristotles biology according to which, on one interpretation, individual resemblances constitute individual forms (GA IV.3 767b3033). However, the classic statement is to be found in Porphyrys Isagoge 7.198.3. Porphyry may have drawn on Theaetetus 209c where Plato speaks of an individual consisting of uniquely distinctive characteristics. Porphyrys notion was adopted by later Neoplatonists, such as Proclus (in Olympiodorus in Alc. I 204.812 W.), Simplicius (in Cat. 83.1620) and the author of the commentary on the Posterior Analytics, attributed by the manuscripts to John Philoponus (437.21438.2). Porphyrys aim with the notion may only have been to elucidate the Categories, a work that lacks any reference to matter and form. The idea of distinctive character may have seemed to him Aristotelian, but the idea of the individual as bundle was much more problematic. Sorabji also mentions Avicennas objection: how can it be that the bundle of characteristics unique to Socrates would never be, rather than merely happening not to be, shared? At any rate, the notion leads Porphyry to take the view that an individual can be treated as a species. Socrates is a human (which is now his genus) and is marked out by the distinctive characteristics (Isag. 7.1619). Part Four focuses on the ethical relevance of individuality and the permanence of the person in ethical context. The main question is whether we can make a universal claim on the decision of how to act in the right way. The middle Stoic theory attested in Ciceros De Ociis (107115) oers an important option. According to this theory, our behaviour is a mixture of four roles (personae). Some of these roles are common to many people, but

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there is one which is unique to the person. When Caesar won the civil war it was right to Cato to commit suicide even if it would not have been right for others in the same circumstances. It was Catos specic character that justied his killing himself. This is not considered the right conduct for everyone. Seneca and Epictetus return to the subject, which shows that the Stoics had a special interest in exceptional circumstances, and Panaetius, the inventor of the four personae theory, only adds to the list by treating individual persona as occasionally exceptional. Individual nature is thus linked to the choice of right action, which may also imply that it is linked to the choice of a life-plan. Plutarch of Chaeronea made memory constitute the self (De tranquillitate animae 473b474b). He suggests that in order to attain cheerfulness of the soul (equma) we need to use our memories to weave our life into a unied whole. If we fail to do it, we shall resemble the person in the painting who is plaiting a rope in the underworld and throws the rope over his shoulder without noticing that a grazing donkey eats up what he has plaited. The view is not without precedents, but Plutarch adds that without memory we shall be like the people described in the Growing Argument who have no continuous self. Sorabji mentions two interpretations. There is a possibility to explain the text as saying that there is no continuous self until the weaving has been done. The other option is to say that there is already a human being, but until a human being weaves their life, they will not have adopted an identity of their own. The latter option is much stronger, although Plutarchs thesis may not be explained along these lines. He relies on the idea that memories are of the same person who had the experiences recalled. He also suggests that it is not the self which lacks unication, only the life led. Construal of a self by using memory diers from self-creation through the choices one makes. The discussion of proaresij in Epictetus aims to show that the identication of this activity with the inviolable self rests on a reinterpretation of the original Aristotelian concept. Sorabji takes proaresij to mean will and sets himself to resolve the inconsistencies between this notion and Epictetus other remarks that point to a dierent direction. Once we nd (Diss. II.22.1923, cf. IV.4.23) that we can locate I outside our will in the esh or in externals. The explanation calls for early Stoic notions and state that when we locate I outside the will, we locate it outside the unperverted will. The second problem pertain to a possible recognition of more than one self. If this is so, how to qualify the claim that will is the self? The solution suggests that the person is an entity with many aspects. For some purposes we may pick out the total entity with a pronoun like you, but sometimes we may concentrate on one aspect, proaresij (p. 187). Epictetus theory also diers from the early Stoic views on many points.

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The most important perhaps is exemplied by his remark that My proaresij not even God can conquer (Diss. I.1.23). On the early Stoic view, however, everything is fated or, in other words, subject to God. His use of the term klog is also peculiar since he uses it in order to deny that he can select among things that are not up to him. What one can see in examining Epictetus theory is that the self as proaresij is a heavily loaded ethical concept, which can be identied as practical reason. Part ve is about self-awareness. There are two ancient paradoxes that concern the question whether self-awareness is deprived of content or innitely regressive. The question of content was raised in Charmides 167a169c, repeated by Sextus Empiricus (M VII.284286), whereas Aristotle disentangled the problem of self-thinking from that of perceptual awareness. Sorabji argues that identity of the intellect and what it thinks is the restricted kind of identity mentioned in Physics III.3, instantiated by the acts of teaching and learning; they are to be counted as one activity, although without meaning the same thing (p. 203). This is also an explanation of the notion of the divine intellect thinking itself, pointing out that such kind of self-thinking is immune to the charge of being contentless. The Aristotelian intellect has a rich intellectual content, since it may be thinking propositions, and in doing so it thinks itself because the propositions are in a certain way identical with itself. The danger of innite regress pops up in Aristotles De anima III.2 425b1228, concerning the problem of whether there is an innite regress of types of faculty for being aware that we perceive, and being aware of being aware that we perceive. Or, we may be better o talking about, not types, but individual acts of such awareness. On the interpretation of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotles aim was to stop this regress by showing that there is a sense in which an act of perceiving is identical with what it perceives. Innite regress is ruled out from other senses as well. Furthermore, perceptual awareness does not require another faculty to interfere, but only the generic perceptual power, and perceiving by sight (which includes perceiving that we see) is not the same as seeing, thus, unlike the object seen, it does not have to take on colours. This solution can be brought in line with the conception in De somno, repeated in Alexanders De anima as well. Self-knowledge is supposed to be infallible, a theme recurrent in Augustine and Avicenna. Mistakes about the self are due to our relying on images of bodily things (De trinitate X.3.5, 5.76.8, 8.11, 10.16). Moreover, it is the whole soul that is endowed with knowledge, therefore it is the whole soul that knows itself, and it knows itself as knowing, which anticipates Descartes cogito. Augustine used the cogito-argument to show also that the soul knows not only certain operations but also its own essence as distinct from them.

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Avicennas ying man argument is of a similar structure, although he may not have known Augustines works since they had not been translated into Arabic. He imagines a man who comes into existence ying through the air or void without perceiving anything. This man knows that his essence exists, but he does not know that body exists. The conclusion not quite justied is that essence, to be equated with the soul, is independent from the body. This and other parallels between Augustine and Avicenna suggest a common origin, and Sorabji supposes that both were drawing on Porphyry (p. 226). In Sententiae 40.2932 we read that For in fact, in distancing oneself from oneself, one distances oneself also from being; and if one takes ones stand in oneself, present to a self that is present to itself, then one is present also to Being, which is everywhere (trans. J. Dillon) and in Sententiae 41 Porphyry goes on to show that the intellect does not owe its essence to body. Another problem of self-awareness concerns the way of knowing our self. Is it mediated through others or direct? Starting from Alcibiades I, Platonist tradition, including Aristotle, laid great emphasis on self-knowledge as an indirect knowledge; one knows oneself only through others. This trend can be seen in Stoicism as well. In Aristotle, the discussion is embedded in the investigation into love and friendship. One can see here an interesting discrepancy: love for friends is based on self-love, whereas knowledge of self is grounded on knowledge of the other (EN VIII.12 1161b1819, 2729; IX.4 1166a12; IX.7 1186a510; IX.8 1168b5). The latter thesis, however, can be held with qualication only for Aristotles claims that we are inevitably aware of our existence and goodness, without the knowledge of friends (p. 235). One form of self-awareness is perceptual awareness. In Aristotle, perceptual awareness implies the unity of the perceiving self, which is inevitable if are to perceive that this sweet and this yellow belong to a unitary external object. The distinction of sweet and yellow depends on our distinguishing our perception of sweet from our perception of yellow. The unity of self-awareness can be established at dierent levels. In sense-perception, Aristotle credits the sensus communis with the responsibility for sense-perception. Plotinus makes a distinction between self-thinking, which is an automatic activity of the intellect, and our awareness that we are thinking (p. 274). In general, he is tempted to describe self-consciousness in terms of turning the apprehension (t ntilambanmenon) inwards and making it attend (prosoc) within (V.1.12.514). Proclus assumes that there is a simple faculty by virtue of which we are aware of our mental activities (in Parm. 957.28958.11), which ultimately led some later Neoplatonists to assume that we have an attentive part of which the task is to cognize all the other activities of the soul. Alternatively, some others ascribe perceptual

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awareness to the sensus communis that was turned into a rational, instead of a perceptual, faculty. Part VI is devoted to the rejection of the view that we are just an ownerless stream of consciousness, as has been claimed by Derek Part (Reasons and Persons, Oxford, 1987, 210228). The view opposed by the argument that if there were no owner of consciousness it would be dicult to speak about agency or ethics in general. There would only be processes without subjects. Consequently, all the right activities should be connected to one single stream and activities belonging to dierent streams should not be connected to one another in the same way. It will be hard to specify the links and distinguish dierent streams without appeal to dierent owners. Facing with the possibility of teletransportation we cannot link one stream to one particular body either. As an ancient parallel, Sorabji examines Buddhist theories according to which there are only streams of physiological and physical events. They represent a certain kind of reductionism, illustrated by the example of a chariot that, on this view, is nothing but wheels, axles, etc. Just like the chariot, the person is also nothing but a name. But it has been left unexplained why the chariot is nothing but the mere sum of its parts. One might also add that, apart from innite regress, the illustration may fail to show what it was intended to show, namely that the person is ctitious and only the stream of events is real, for the parts of the chariot are not events but objects. The arguments put forward by the Hindu philosophers associated with the Nyaya school aim to show the necessity of the persons existence. Understanding a single sentence requires the person to remember conventional semantic rules. Furthermore, if there were only visual and tactual sensations, without a perceiver who has both, then it would be impossible to think of these sensory qualities belonging to the same object. The last Part is about the theories on the survival of the soul (or some parts of it) after the destruction of the body. Reincarnation, disembodied existence and resurrection are at issue. They do not exclude one another for the soul may go through a disembodied state before reincarnation. In Plotinus (V.7.1.111) it seems that reincarnation does not imply the survival of the person. Pythagoras is reincarnated as Socrates, but Pythagoras and Socrates are two dierent persons. If, however, we are identied with our soul, it is dicult to see the reason why Plotinus assumes that Pythagoras is not the same person as Socrates. Disembodied survival was a great concern for Christian philosophers. Sorabji argues (p. 305) that in some cases we get very close to Parts position that there is only a stream of activities without an owner. He points to four problems that are interrelated: (i) disembodied mental activities,

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(ii) disembodied activities linked into streams, (iii) disembodied owners and (iv) desirability of disembodied life. Survival in a circular time is certain, but the whole conception creates special problems. Sorabji oers a thought experiment to show one diculty. If the cycle were of forty years, and you die at age of thirty-nine (or forty) you would have one year to be born (or you will die down into the seeds from which you were born). In such circumstances, an event can cause itself either causally explaining itself or causally guaranteeing itself, or being a causally necessary prerequisite for itself. Discussing the Greek notion of the circularity of time, Sorabji shows the implausibility that the Stoics were thinking of one circle rather than endless repetition. Words such as plin or pollkij indicate that the events occurred again and again, which may also show that the Stoics did not apply the principle of the identity of indiscernibles to events and times. Finally, we read about the arguments, both Indian and European, concerning the irrationality to feel dismay if we do not survive death. The arguments in Lucretius (DRN III.83242, 97277) and Plutarch (Consolatio ad uxorem 610d) against feeling horror at such a perspective were examined in Sorabjis earlier book Time, Creation and the Continuum (London, 1983). Here he adds that the Lucretian argument that fear is not justied does not remove the fear, but it can keep it in check and prevent it from growing. Among the numerous issues examined in the book, let me draw attention to a few that might call for further explication. To take a general issue rst, even if we have a proper denition of the self and an intuitive view about what it is to be a person (say, for instance, it is what is signied by proper names), it may not be easy to t our conceptions into ancient frameworks. To mention one example, in late antiquity Platonists tended to say that what we truly are is the rational part of our soul. This rational part of the soul is endowed with essential notions (lgoi), which form the core of this part of the soul (or of this soul). In this sense, however, this soul is not individual since each human soul contains the same lgoi. To put it dierently, the individuality of the soul is not strong enough since the dierence between the souls lays only in the fact that they are incarnated in dierent bodies. Moreover, if the self is not to be identied with the person, then to what extent is it personal? If the self is not personal, then there might be a common self for many people. If the self is an embodied individual whose existence is plain to see (p. 4), and this individual is something that has or owns psychological states as well as having or owning a body and bodily states (p. 4), then we are facing some problems about the individuality of this self. To start with Aristotles description in Metaphysics VII.4 1029b14. (referred to on p. 137), if your essence (t so enai) is characterized by what belongs to

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you per se, then even if we accept the existence of individual forms, we have to nd out what characteristics belong to you per se. It seems that the relevant characteristics are rationality and being an animal, at least if we consider the essence the deniendum, as Aristotle does here. This may not pose a serious problem for those who think that Aristotle was working with the concept of particular forms since they can claim that the dierence of one particular form from others of the same species is determined by the matter in which it realized. By contrast, the individuality of the self may not be secured in the same way. If the self is to be equated with the essence, which might be an option (although the relation between rationality and the psychological state owned by the individual self may still call for qualication), then it seems to be common to many individuals of the same species. Thus, if individuality is a prerequisite, then it cannot be acquired by the matter the self/essence is linked to. In the case of the self, matter can be equated with the body and its states, both are owned by the individual self. Furthermore, if, unlike Socrates as a compound of body and soul, Socrates soul may be equated with the essence of Socrates (VII.6 1032a8, referred to on p. 137, and VII.10 1036a12 [ka yuc enai ka yuc tat]; VIII.2 1043b2), then the soul has a quite intimate relation to the self as essence, which invites the question about the relation between self and person. Thus we can see that even if there is no commitment to a Platonic soul or a Cartesian ego there is still a problem to maintain the denition of the self as an individual entity. If we look for the faculty within the soul that can be considered the self, one candidate might be the dianohtikn for this is what is called per kastoj enai doke (NE IX.4 1166a1617, cf. 8 1169a2; X.7 1178a2, 7). It is not quite clear that Aristotle presents the idea always with qualication, as Sorabji claims (pp. 35, 117).1 It is true even if we know that his concept of rationality is not the same as Platos concept in the

As he mentions, there are four occurrences of the expression (Protrepticus fr. 12; EN IX.4 1166a1617; 8 1168b341169a3, X.7 1178a2, 7). To take the occurrences in the EN, the passage in 1166a1617 may contain a qualication (doke), in 1169a2 we read that rationality (lgoj whatever it may mean) is what is each of us, or this most of all, is not unclear (ok dhlon), and in 1178a2 we have dxeie, but as the statement has an important role in the argument showing that the most noble way of life is the contemplative one, we may take the whole clause for an understatement. This is corroborated later (1178a7) where we read that life according to noj is the best for man, given that man is this most of all, (translating eper as given that with Rowe).

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middle dialogues. It is true, however, that Plato may also be wrestling with similar problems. In the Phaedo he deprives the soul of everything related to the body (64e665a1): sensations, feelings, pleasure and pain do not belong to the soul per se (ti mlista at kaq' atn 65c7). This, as Sorabji notes (p. 34), may lead someone to worry about the individuality of the self. As we are identied with the soul (63c), the question is what kind of individuality this rational soul confers on us. Obviously perhaps, the dierence has much to do with the content of this rational soul. It seems, at least on one interpretation I am ready to accept, that each soul is born with the same content, for previously each of them sojourned in the realm of ideas and contemplated the ideas. Discarnate souls possess the same storage of concepts and nothing else. There is no evidence in the text that Plato allowed for the possibility that, for instance, some soul would lack the concept of equality. If so, then each soul has the same content by birth, but that does not mean that each uses them to the same extent and in the same manner. It is possible that some innate concepts will not be used by certain incarnated souls at all. Knowledge of the self through others may also be claried at some points. In the Alcibiades I (discussed on pp. 115116, 230232) Plato emphasizes that self-knowledge is to be achieved through the contact with others. But, quite apart from the question whether the dierence between at t at and atj kastoj in 130d35 is about the dierence between true self and the individual, or the itself itself (Denyer, referring to what it is for a thing to be itself) and the individual, the narrative itself has a striking feature. If self-knowledge is explained analogously with the eyes seeing itself by the aid of another eye seeing it, then there is a dierence of self-knowledge depending on what kind of soul are we contacted with for such purposes. For, as has been showed, the optical analogue suggests that when we look into someone elses eyes we see ourselves in the way that person sees us. It is like making a distinction between two types of sentence: I see myself and I see a picture which represents me (and this of course can be distorted). Thus, in short, our self-knowledge is the knowledge of what others know about us and the way they know about us.2 This implies that knowledge of the self is not only mediated, but may also contain conicting elements since dierent people know me dierently. Against this background we can see one reason for inserting the disputed passage (133bc), found in Clemens of Alexandria only

J. Brunschwig, Sur quelques emplois dyij, in Zetesis (Mlanges E. De Strycker), Antwerp, 1973, 2439.

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(Stromateis I.19.94.4). If god or the divine wisdom can be a perfect mirror then by contemplating it we are in a position to know our self as it is. On discussing the Platonic legacy of Porphyrys notion of the individual as mere bundle of characteristics (Isagoge 7.198.3, referred to on pp. 138 139, 141143, see also in Cat. 129.810) Sorabji stresses the terminological resemblance: in the Isagoge Porphyry uses dithj.3 What calls for explanation is the locus of the self in this context. Despite the resemblance of terms, it seems that Porphyry and Plato have dierent concerns. In the Theaetetus passage (209c) Plato is talking about bodily characteristics (snubness). That might imply that he can think about the self in terms of the soul without running the risk of claiming that the self is an aggregate of characteristics. The question is whether Porphyry is ready to take over such a restrictive position in the Isagoge and the commentary of the Categories. On comparing Plato and Socrates (in Cat. 129.1516) Porphyry discusses their dierence in terms of diqesij. Now it is not quite clear what diqesij means here, but nothing rules out that it refers to psychic disposition. On this basis alone we are not entitled to say that Plato and Socrates have dierent self, but their dierence is denitely not to be considered as a divergence of their bodily states. The account on Porphyrys view could have been further enriched by a discussion of the De abstinentia. Here Porphyry refers to Platos metaphor of the charioteer. As he says, lgoj is responsible for disposing the non-rational activities of the soul.4 Our logismj as charioteer sets right the non-rational activities; it is present at the activities which are through the body and determines what is commensurate and the right occasion.5 If it is absent and engulfed with its own aairs, then either our attention is on it and therefore the non-rational power in us is not permitted to go on its own way; or we attend to the unreasoning part of ourselves, which thus remains unchecked by reason, and we will be dominated by the non-rational forces of the soul. The description deserves special attention because Porphyry uses the notion of attention (prosoc) to describe our attitude towards reason. He seems to apply the notion in the sense Epictetus used it. In the chapter

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But in the Commentary on the Categories he uses dierent terms (dithj d sundromj poiottwn), hinting at Plotinus (VI.3.8.1937) according to whom the individual is a conglomerate including matter and qualities. De abst. I.43.2 p. 118.24119.7 Norvin (= vol. I, p. 76 Bouartigue-Patillon). I.44.3 (= vol. I, p. 77 B.-P.). The latter passage runs as follows: ka n taj llaij

taj di to smatoj nergeaij polasesi parn mn nocoj forzei tn smmetron ka tn ekairon.

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specically devoted to attention, Porphyry describes our deviation from the intellect in terms of the wrong direction of our attention. It occurs when our attention turns to the awareness of sense-perception.6 If attention were a rational activity, then the non-rational forces would be under strong control when it is directed towards them. It seems to be a general attitude towards all sorts of activities, psychic and bodily alike. Furthermore, there is an important passage in Book 3 which discusses the involvement of reason in sense-perception. The thesis is that what happens to eyes and ears does not produce perception if thinking is not present.7 It may have an important implication. Porphyry may mean that in order to perceive something we must possess reason which is involved in this process. In that case perception may be the activity by the aid of which we can contact the impressions impinging on the sense-organs. But the contact itself does not entail awareness of that contact. Porphyry makes it very clear when talking about apprehension of perception. If the passages have anything to do with the notion of self, which I believe they have, then it is linked to one faculty of the rational soul, not to the whole rational soul. The dierence between self and person is particularly interesting in the four personae theory attributed to Panaetius (discussed on pp. 158160, 168169). What kind of distinction can be drawn between self and person? One might intuitively assume that the person is the sum of the four personae. But what is the self? Is this something underlying these personae, or one of them? Of the four, three are common and thus the self cannot be any them by denition. But what about the fourth persona, which is constituted by our iudicium and voluntas (Cicero, De ociis I.115)? Is this the formative element of our self? In a sense, it can be, but we must also be clear that in this way the self is accomodated to special circumstances as well as to our special nature (since choices are measured against this background: Cato was right to commit suicide in given circumstances and because he has that particular nature, whereas others with dierent nature are not justied in doing so in those circumstances).

I.39.2 (= vol. I, p. 72 B.-P.): prosoc tj ntilyewj. The term ntlhyij cannot be rendered as sense-perception as the expression ntlhyij tj asqsewj in 41.5 makes it clear. III.21.8 (= vol. II, p. 179 B.-P.) To support the case Porphyry refers to Strato of Lampsacus who argued that all perceptions are felt in the soul, not in the body which is aected. In her notes to the English translation of De Abstinentia G. Clark mentions that Plotinus disagreed with it (Enn. IV.7.7). See Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals. London-Ithaca, 2000, 174175, n. 487.

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One nal small point. The Stoic version of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is interpreted as referring to individuals, not to their distinctive qualities (p. 68). Alexander (in An. Pr. 180.3336, 181.2531) mentions that they allowed for minor dierences between the distinctively qualied individual in this cosmos and its counterpart in the next. The numerical identity of Socrates is secured by the recurrence of his uniquely distinctive quality. Thus the identity of indiscernibles seems to be maintained at the level of distinctive qualities either, not just at the level of individuals. There may be no specic reason for ruling out that the principle can apply to individual qualities as well. If there is no such reason, Alexanders arguments still hold their force. (The term pllaktoj refers to things as well, cf. Origen, Contra Celsum V.20.) The purpose of this discussion has been to delineate some directions which further research in the eld might protably pursue. So rich and complex a work as this can hardly be expected to elicit the complete agreement of any reader, but I am persuaded that it will prove intellectually fecund for all. Pter Lautner Faculty of Humanities Pzmny Pter Catholic University Piliscsaba, H-2081 Hungary
<lautner@btk.ppke.hu>