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Aristotle on Truth This page intentionally left blank ARISTOTLE ON TRUTH Aristotle’s theory of truth, which has been the most influential account of the concept of truth from Antiquity onwards, spans several areas of philosophy: philosophy of language, logic, ontology, and episte- mology. In this book, the first dedicated to this topic, Paolo Crivelli discusses all the main aspects of Aristotle’s views on truth and false- hood. He analyses in detail the main relevant passages, addresses some well-known problems of Aristotelian semantics, and assesses Aristotle’s theory from the point of view of modern analytic philosophy. In the process he discusses most of the literature on Aristotle’s semantic theory to have appeared in the last two centuries. His book vindi- cates and clarifies the often repeated claim that Aristotle’s is a corre- spondence theory of truth. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in both ancient philosophy and modern philosophy of language. paolo crivelli is Fellow and Tutor in Classical Philosophy at New College, Oxford. He has published articles on Plato’s logic and epistemology, Aristotle’s philosophical logic, and Stoic logic. ARISTOTLE ON TRUTH PAOLO CRIVELLI University of Oxford cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521823289 © Paolo Crivelli 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2004 isbn-13 978-0-511-23002-8 eBook (EBL) isbn-10 0-511-23002-8 eBook (EBL) isbn-13 978-0-521-82328-9 hardback isbn-10 0-521-82328-5 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. To the memory of my father Renzo Crivelli and to my mother Katherine Lester Crivelli Contents Acknowledgements page ix Notes on the text x List of abbreviations of titles of Aristotle’s works xi Introduction 1 1 An overview of Aristotle’s theory of truth 1 2 Methodology 39 part i bearers of truth or falsehood 1 States of affairs, thoughts, and sentences 45 1 States of affairs 46 2 Thoughts 62 3 Sentences 72 2 Tr uth conditions for predicative assertions 77 1 Universals 78 2 Truth and falsehood in de Interpretatione 182 3 Affirmative and negative predicative assertions 86 4 Assertions about individuals vs assertions about universals 89 5 Tr uth and the categories 95 3 Tr uth conditions for existential assertions 99 1 Existential assertions concerning simple items 100 2 Non-composite substances 116 3 Singular existential assertions concerning material substances 121 part ii ‘empty’ terms 4 Tr uth as correspondence 129 1 A correspondence theory of truth? 129 2 The Liar 139 vii viii Contents 5 ‘Vacuous’ terms and ‘empty’ terms 152 1 ‘Vacuous’ subjects or predicates 153 2 ‘Empty’ subjects or predicates 158 3 One assertion vs many assertions 163 part iii truth and time 6 Tr uth and change 183 1 Different truth-values at different times 183 2 Tr uth and relatives 189 3 How far is truth from change? 194 7 Tr uth and Determinism in de Interpretatione 9 198 1 The modal attributes and theses involved in Int. 9 199 2 Close textual analysis of Int. 9 200 3 Alternative interpretations 226 Appendix 1 Metaph. 10, 1051b1: the text 234 Appendix 2 Metaph. 10, 1051b2–3: the text 238 Appendix 3 Int. 7, 17b16–18: the text 239 Appendix 4 The two-place relations in Aristotle’s definition of truth 254 Appendix 5 Aristotle’s theory of truth for predicative assertions: formal presentation 258 Appendix 6 The failure of Bivalence for future-tense assertions: formal presentation 266 References 284 Index of names 313 Index of subjects 319 Index of passages 321 Acknowledgements Many friends and colleagues helped me to shape my views on many of the issues addressed by this study, and alerted me to points where improvement was desirable. Early drafts of parts of the book were presented in Cambridge, Clark, Edinburgh, Florence, Liverpool, Oxford, and Pisa. Among the indi- viduals who in various ways helped me to bring this project to completion, I should like to mention Francesco Ademollo, Francesco Adorno, Fab- rizio Amerini, Sylvia Berryman, Susanne Bobzien, Ettore Casari, Walter Cavini, David Charles, Francesco Del Punta, Paolo Fait, Michael Frede, Gabriele Galluzzo, Richard Gaskin, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Fred Miller, Peter Milne, Ben Morison, Massimo Mugnai, David Robinson, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Theodore Scaltsas, Annamaria Schiaparelli, David Sed- ley, Bob Sharples, Robin Smith, Christopher Strachan, John Thorp, Tim Williamson, and an anonymous referee for Cambridge University Press. The responsibility for the remaining shortcomings is of course mine alone. ix Notes on the text ‘LSJ’ abbreviates the Liddell, Scott, Jones Greek–English lexicon. Irefer to Aristotelian passages by the line numbers as they are printed in Bekker’s original edition: these in some cases differ from the ‘Bekker lines’ of widespread editions (e.g., 101b38 of Ross’s edition of the Topics is 101b39 of Bekker’s original edition). Similarly, I follow Bekker’s numbering of the chapters within each book of the Nicomachean Ethics. ForGreek authors I use LSJ’s standard abbreviations. For authors other than Aristotle, I normally use the critical editions on which LSJ relies. For Latin authors, I employ abbreviations which are easy to decode and I use standard critical editions. ‘Cf.’ at the beginning of a footnote indicates that the passages subse- quently referred to express views close to those formulated in the portion of the main text to which the footnote pertains. If I disagree with an author, I say so explicitly (I never use ‘cf.’ to refer to one or more passages that for- mulate views with which I disagree). I use quotation marks for three purposes: (i) to mention linguistic expres- sions, e.g. the word ‘dog’ is a noun; (ii) to indicate that a certain linguistic expression is being used in some special or unusual sense, e.g. Homer is a ‘philosopher’; (iii) to quote a portion of text from some author, e.g. Aristo- tle says that ‘sentences are true in the same way as the objects’ (Int. 9, 19a33). I use double quotation marks (“and”) only when what would otherwise be occurrences of single quotation marks would be embedded within single quotation marks. x Abbreviations of titles of Aristotle’s works APo. Posterior Analytics APr. Prior Analytics Cael. de Caelo Cat. Categories de An. de Anima Div. Somn. de Divinatione per Somnia EE Eudemian Ethics EN Nicomachean Ethics GA de Generatione Animalium GC de Generatione et Corruptione HA Historia Animalium Insomn. de Insomniis Int. de Interpretatione Long. de Longaevitate MM Magna Moralia Mem. de Memoria Metaph. Metaphysics PA de Partibus Animalium Ph.Physics Po.Poetics Pol. Politics Pr.Problems Rh. Rhetoric SE Sophistici Elenchi Sens. de Sensu Somn. Vig. de Somno et Vigilia Top. Topics Xen. de Xenophane xi Introduction The study of truth is a central part of the philosophical tradition we have inherited from classical Greece. Aristotle played an important role in devel- oping and sharpening the debate in this area and on many issues that are connected with it. I have two primary goals: to offer a precise reconstruction of all of Aristotle’s most significant views on truth and falsehood and to gain a philosophical understanding of them. In this introduction I first offer an overview of Aristotle’s theory of truth and then discuss the methodology I adopt in pursuing my primary goals. 1anoverview of aristotle’s theory of truth Why an overview? Aristotle speaks about truth and falsehood in passages from several works, mainly the Categories (chapters 4, 5, 10, and 12), de Inter- pretatione (chapters 1–9), Sophistici Elenchi (chapter 25), de Anima (chapter 3.6), and the Metaphysics (chapters 7, 7, 29,E4, and 10). Truth and falsehood are not the main topic of these works: their discussions of truth and falsehood are asides. Reconstructing an Aristotelian theory of truth and falsehood on the basis of such asides poses complicated problems of various sorts. To help readers to keep their orientation through the many bifurcations of the arguments addressing these problems, I decided to offer a concise but precise map of the territory – an overview of Aristotle’s theory of truth. References to the passages from Aristotle’s works that substantiate the attribution of a certain view to him, and an examination of the rel- evant secondary literature, will be found in the chapters that follow this introduction. Universals.Toexpound Aristotle’s theory of truth, I need to present some of his views on universals and signification. I begin with universals. Luckily, it is not necessary to embark on the daunting task of a com- plete exposition of Aristotle’s views on universals. Aristotle is to this extent 1 2 Introduction arealist about universals: in his view, universals are objects whose nature is neither mental nor linguistic (they are neither concepts nor linguis- tic expressions). He believes that every universal exists when and only when1 it holds of some individual or other that at some time or other exists.2 Let me spend a few words explaining why the phrase ‘at some time or other’ is needed.
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