Sec. 22. And well might Cratylus hold his peace and move his finger[31] when he had capped the climax with the statement that the same river could not be entered once. Heraclitus had merely denied sameness of the third kind to be sameness, since it implies duality. Cratylus, surprised by a discovery of duality where he had not before suspected it, will not allow the term where there is no duality whatever. It is not surprising that he came at last to be "of opinion that one ought to speak of nothing." Upon such a basis speech loses its significance.
Sec. 23. The Parmenidean argument for the eternity of Being[32] rests partly upon a confusion of the first kind of sameness with the fourth. Being has had no origin, for from what could it have been derived? Not from the non-existent, for this has no existence: and not from the existent, for it is itself the existent. The quibble about the non-existent we need not consider, though it is seriously repeated by more than one writer of our time. The last part of the argument, "not from the existent, for it is itself the existent," draws its whole force from the assumption that "it" is "the existent" as a thing is itself, or in the first sense of the word same. But if this be the case, the argument is a mere farce, an argument only in words. The phrase, "derived from the existent," means nothing at all unless it means that the existent in question is before the thing derived. To say it is the thing derived, is to reduce the words to nothing. If it mean anything to speak of the existent as derived from the existent, it is because each of these is an existent—that is, a thing belonging to a class and distinguished from other members of this class by some difference. In this case the difference is that of before and after. An existent derived from an existent is the same with it only as things of a class are the same. If we choose to eliminate all differences and speak of "the existent" we may do so; but then it is inadmissible to raise questions about its derivation, and bring in those very time distinctions between different "existents" which we are supposing absent.
Sec. 24. The nihilistic doctrine of Gorgias of Leontini,[33] who taught that nothing exists, that if it did exist it could not be known, and that if it did exist and could be known the knowledge of it could not be communicated by one mind to another, is founded in part upon such bad reasoning that it is rather surprising that Gorgias should have been guilty of it. That part of it, however, which has to do with the communicability of knowledge is rather better than the rest, and indicates some progress in reflection. A sign, he says, differs from the thing it signifies. How can one communicate the notion of color by words, since the ear hears sounds and not colors? Besides, how can the same idea be in two different persons? This reasoning would seem at least plausible, I think, to many minds at the present day. It is evidently the offspring of a confusion of samenesses. A sign differs, it is true, from the thing signified. The word blue heard by the ear is not like the color blue seen or imagined. But if any one pronounce the word, and ask me if I am thinking of the color he has mentioned, I say yes. The sound is not like the color, but it is its representative, and one of the proper uses of the word same (the fifth) indicates just this relation between representative and thing represented. Any attempt to discredit communication of knowledge on the ground that one cannot speak colors, and that, therefore, one man is speaking one thing and the other thinking another, goes on the supposition that what is said and what is thought must be the same in sense first (strict identity) or in sense fourth (must be a thing of the same kind). And as to the existence of the same thing in two minds; here Gorgias has evidently discovered with some surprise that sameness in sense sixth differs from sameness in sense first, and has felt impelled to deny it the name altogether. He has perceived a duality where most men have not noticed it; and, instead of observing that there are samenesses and samenesses, and that the communication of knowledge is concerned with the sixth kind in this connection, and not with the first, he has denied the communication of knowledge. Had he found it necessary to carry out his theoretic premises to practical conclusions he would have stopped talking, which he did not; though presumably the irrepressible didactic instinct would have led him, spite of consistency, to imitate Cratylus in moving his finger.
Sec. 25. The reasoning in the Platonic Dialogues is very frequently not above suspicion; but it is not easy to find anywhere such a nest of paralogisms as we have in the Parmenides. How far Plato was in earnest in all this quibbling, and what was his aim, I will not pretend to say. He has, however, very well illustrated the possibilities of equivocation in juggling with samenesses, and I shall quote a bit of the argument concerning the one and the many to show how readily this is done. Almost any part of the dialogue would do, but I choose the first bout between Parmenides and Aristoteles. I take Professor Jowett's version:[34]
Parmenides proceeded: If one is, he said, the one cannot be many?
Impossible.
Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?
How is that?
Why, the part would surely be the part of a whole?
Yes.