Plato: Theaetetus

The Theaetetus is one of the middle to later dialogues of

the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Plato was Socrates student and Aristotles teacher. As in
most of Platos dialogues, the main character is Socrates. In the Theaetetus, Socrates
converses with Theaetetus, a boy, and Theodorus, his mathematics teacher. Although this
dialogue features Platos most sustained discussion on the concept of knowledge, it fails to
yield an adequate definition of knowledge, thus ending inconclusively. Despite this lack of a
positive definition, the Theaetetus has been the source of endless scholarly fascination. In
addition to its main emphasis on the nature of cognition, it considers a wide variety of
philosophical issues: the Socratic Dialectic, Heraclitean Flux, Protagorean Relativism,
rhetorical versus philosophical life, and false judgment. These issues are also discussed in
other Platonic dialogues.

The Theaetetus poses a special difficulty for Plato scholars trying to interpret the dialogue: in
light of Platos metaphysical and epistemological commitments, expounded in earlier
dialogues such as the Republic, the Forms are the only suitable objects of knowledge, and yet
the Theaetetus fails explicitly to acknowledge them. Might this failure mean that Plato has
lost faith in the Forms, as the Parmenides suggests, or is this omission of the Forms a
calculated move on Platos part to show that knowledge is indeed indefinable without a
proper acknowledgement of the Forms? Scholars have also been puzzled by the picture of the
philosopher painted by Socrates in the digression: there the philosopher emerges as a man
indifferent to the affairs of the city and concerned solely with becoming as much godlike as
possible. What does this version of the philosophic life have to do with a city-bound Socrates
whose chief concern was to benefit his fellow citizens? These are only two of the questions
that have preoccupied Plato scholars in their attempt to interpret this highly complex dialogue.

Table of Contents

1. The Characters of Platos Theaetetus

2. Date of Composition
3. Outline of the Dialogue
 1. Knowledge as Arts and Sciences (146c 151d)
2. Knowledge as Perception (151d 186e)
3. Knowledge as True Judgment (187a 201c)
4. Knowledge as True Judgment with Logos (201c 210d)
4. References and Further Reading
1. General Commentaries
2. Knowledge as Arts and Sciences
3. Knowledge as Perception
4. Knowledge as True Judgment
5. Knowledge as True Judgment with Logos

1. The Characters of Platos Theaetetus

In the Theaetetus, Socrates converses with two mathematicians, Theaetetus and Theodorus.
Theaetetus is portrayed as a physically ugly but extraordinarily astute boy, and Theodorus is
his mathematics teacher. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Theaetetus lived in
Athens (c. 415369 BCE) and was a renowned geometer. He is credited with the theory of
irrational lines, a contribution of fundamental importance for Euclids Elements X. He also
worked out constructions of the regular solids like those in Elements XIII. Theodorus lived in
Cyrene in the late fifth century BCE. In the dialogue, he is portrayed as a friend of Protagoras,
well-aware of the Sophists teachings, and quite unfamiliar with the intricacies of Socratic
Dialectic. As far as his scientific work is concerned, the only existing source is Platos
Theaetetus: In the dialogue, Theodorus is portrayed as having shown the irrationality of the
square roots of 3, 5, 6, 7, ... ,17. Irrational numbers are numbers equal to an ordinary fraction,
a fraction that has whole numbers in its numerator and denominator. The passage has been
interpreted in many different ways, and its historical accuracy has been disputed.

2. Date of Composition
The introduction of the dialogue informs the reader that Theaetetus is being carried home
dying of wounds and dysentery after a battle near Corinth. There are two known battles that
are possibly the one referred to in the dialogue: the first one took place at about 394 BCE, and
the other occurred at around 369 BCE. Scholars commonly prefer the battle of 369 BCE as
the battle referred to in the dialogue. The dialogue is a tribute to Theaetetus memory and was
probably written shortly after his death, which most scholars date around 369 367 BCE. It is
uncontroversial that the Theaetetus, the Sophist and the Statesman were written in that order.
The primary evidence for this order is that the Sophist begins with a reference back to the
Theaetetus and a reference forward to the Statesman. In addition, there is a number of
thematic continuities between the Theaetetus and the Sophist (for instance, the concept of
false belief, and the notions of being, sameness, and difference) and between the
Sophist and the Statesman (such as the use of the method of collection and division).

3. Outline of the Dialogue

The dialogue examines the question, What is knowledge (episteme)? For heuristic purposes,
it can be divided into four sections, in which a different answer to this question is examined:
(i) Knowledge is the various arts and sciences; (ii) Knowledge is perception; (iii) Knowledge
is true judgment; and (iv) Knowledge is true judgment with an account (Logos). The
dialogue itself is prefaced by a conversation between Terpsion and Euclid, in the latters
house in Megara. From this conversation we learn about Theaetetus wounds and impending
death and about Socrates prophecy regarding the future of the young man. In addition, we
learn about the dialogues recording method: Euclid had heard the entire conversation from
Socrates, he then wrote down his memoirs of the conversation, while checking the details
with Socrates on subsequent visits to Athens. Euclids role did not consist simply in writing
down Socrates memorized version of the actual dialogue; he also chose to cast it in direct
dialogue, as opposed to narrative form, leaving out such connecting sentences as and I said
and he agreed. Finally, Euclids product is read for him and for Terpsion by a slave. This is
the only Platonic dialogue which is being read by a slave.

a. Knowledge as Arts and Sciences (146c 151d)

To Socrates question, What is knowledge?, Theaetetus responds by giving a list of

examples of knowledge, namely geometry, astronomy, harmonics, and arithmetic, as well as
the crafts or skills (technai) of cobbling and so on (146cd). These he calls knowledges,
presumably thinking of them as the various branches of knowledge. As Socrates correctly
observes, Theaetetus answer provides a list of instances of things of which there is
knowledge. Socrates states three complaints against this response: (a) what he is interested in
is the one thing common to all the various examples of knowledge, not a multiplicity of
different kinds of knowledge; (b) Theaetetus response is circular, because even if one knows
that, say, cobbling is knowledge of how to make shoes, one cannot know what cobbling is,
unless one knows what knowledge is; (c) The youths answer is needlessly long-winded, a
short formula is all that is required. The definition of clay as earth mixed with water, which
is also evoked by Aristotle in Topics 127a, is representative of the type of definition needed
here. Theaetetus offers the following mathematical example to show that he understands
Socrates definitional requirements: the geometrical equivalents of what are now called
surds could be grouped in one class and given a single name (powers) by dint of their
common characteristic of irrationality or incommensurability. When he tries to apply the same
method to the question about knowledge, however, Theaetetus does not know how to proceed.
In a justly celebrated image, Socrates, like an intellectual midwife, undertakes to assist him in
giving birth to his ideas and in judging whether or not they are legitimate children. Socrates
has the ability to determine who is mentally pregnant, by knowing how to use medicine and
incantations to induce mental labor. Socrates also has the ability to tell in whose company a
young man may benefit academically. This latter skill is not one that ordinary midwives seem
to have, but Socrates insists that they are the most reliable matchmakers, and in order to prove
his assertion he draws upon an agricultural analogy: just as the farmer not only tends and
harvests the fruits of the earth, but also knows which kind of earth is best for planting various
kinds of seed, so the midwifes art should include a knowledge of both sowing and
harvesting. But unlike common midwives, Socrates art deals with the soul and enables him
to distinguish and embrace true beliefs rather than false beliefs. By combining the techn of
the midwife with that of the farmer, Socrates provides in the Theaetetus the most celebrated
analogy for his own philosophical practice.

b. Knowledge as Perception (151d 186e)

Encouraged by Socrates maieutic intervention, Theaetetus comes up with a serious proposal

for a definition: knowledge is perception. Satisfied with at least the form of this definition,
Socrates immediately converts it into Protagoras homo-mensura doctrine, Man is the
measure of all things, of the things that are that [or how] they are, of the things that are not
that [or how] they are not. The Protagorean thesis underscores the alleged fact that
perception is not only an infallible but also the sole form of cognition, thereby bringing out
the implicit assumptions of Theaetetus general definition. Socrates effects the complete
identity between knowledge and perception by bringing together two theses: (a) the
interpretation of Protagoras doctrine as meaning how things appear to an individual is how
they are for that individual (e.g., if the wind appears cold to X, then it is cold for X); and
(b) the equivalence of Y appears F to X with X perceives Y as F (e.g., the wind appears
cold to Socrates with Socrates perceives the wind as cold). His next move is to build the
ontological foundation of a world that guarantees perceptual infallibility. For that, Socrates
turns to the Heraclitean postulate of Radical Flux, which he attributes to Protagoras as his
Secret Doctrine. Nearly all commentators acknowledge that Protagoras secret teaching is
unlikely to be a historically accurate representation of either Protagoras ontological
commitments or Heraclitus Flux doctrine. The notion of Universal Flux makes every visual
eventfor example the visual perception of whitenessthe private and unique product of
interaction between an individuals eyes and an external motion. Later this privacy is
explained with the metaphor of the perceiver and the perceived object as parents birthing a
twin offspring, the objects whiteness and the subjects corresponding perception of it. Both
parents and offspring are unique and unrepeatable: there can be no other, identical interaction
between either the same parents or different parents able to produce the same offspring. No
two perceptions can thus ever be in conflict with each other, and no one can ever refute
anyone elses perceptual judgments, since these are the products of instantaneous perceptual
relations, obtaining between ever-changing perceiving subjects and ever-changing perceived
objects. Although the assimilation of Protagorean Relativism to Theaetetus definition
requires the application of the doctrine to Perceptual Relativismwhich explains Socrates
extensive focus on the mechanics of perceptionone should bear in mind that the man-as-
measure thesis is broader in scope, encompassing all judgments, especially judgments
concerning values, such as the just and the good, and not just narrowly sensory
impressions. Socrates launches a critique against both interpretations of Protagoreanism,
beginning with its broadmoral and epistemologicaldimensions, and concluding with its
narrow, perceptual aspects.

Socrates attacks broad Protagoreanism from within the standpoint afforded him by three main
arguments. First, Socrates asks how, if people are each a measure of their own truth, some,
among whom is Protagoras himself, can be wiser than others. The same argument appears in
Cratylus 385e386d as a sufficient refutation of the homo-mensura doctrine. The Sophists
imagined answer evinces a new conceptualization of wisdom: the wisdom of a teacher like
Protagoras has nothing to do with truth, instead it lies in the fact that he can better the way
things appear to other people, just as the expert doctor makes the patient feel well by making
his food taste sweet rather than bitter, the farmer restores health to sickly plants by making
them feel better, and the educator changes a worse state into a better state by means of
words (167a).

The second critique of Protagoras is the famous self-refutation argument. It is essentially a

two-pronged argument: the first part revolves around false beliefs, while the second part,
which builds on the findings of the first, threatens the validity of the man-as-measure
doctrine. The former can be sketched as follows: (1) many people believe that there are false
beliefs; therefore, (2) if all beliefs are true, there are [per (1)] false beliefs; (3) if not all beliefs
are true, there are false beliefs; (4) therefore, either way, there are false beliefs (169d170c).
The existence of false beliefs is inconsistent with the homo-mensura doctrine, and hence, if
there are false beliefs, Protagoras truth is false. But since the homo-mensura doctrine
proclaims that all beliefs are true, if there are false beliefs, then the doctrine is manifestly
untenable. The latter part of Socrates second critique is much bolderbeing called by
Socrates the most subtle argumentas it aims to undermine Protagoras own commitment
to relativism from within the relativist framework itself (170e171c). At the beginning of this
critique Socrates asserts that, according to the doctrine under attack, if you believe something
to be the case but thousands disagree with you about it, that thing is true for you but false for
the thousands. Then he wonders what the case for Protagoras himself is. If not even he
believed that man is the measure, and the many did not either (as indeed they do not), this
truth that he wrote about is true for no one. If, on the other hand, he himself believed it, but
the masses do not agree, the extent to which those who do not think so exceed those who do,
to that same extent it is not so more than it is so. Subsequently, Socrates adds his most
subtle point: Protagoras agrees, regarding his own view, that the opinion of those who think
he is wrong is true, since he agrees that everybody believes things that are so. On the basis of
this, he would have to agree that his own view is false. On the other hand, the others do not
agree that they are wrong, and Protagoras is bound to agree, on the basis of his own doctrine,
that their belief is true. The conclusion, Socrates states, inevitably undermines the validity of
the Protagorean thesis: if Protagoras opponents think that their disbelief in the homo-mensura
doctrine is true and Protagoras himself must grant the veracity of that belief, then the truth of
the Protagorean theory is disputed by everyone, including Protagoras himself.

In the famous digression (172a177c), which separates the second from the third argument
against broad Protagoreanism, Socrates sets up a dichotomy between the judicial and the
philosophical realm: those thought of as worldly experts in issues of justice are blind
followers of legal practicalities, while the philosophical mind, being unrestricted by temporal
or spatial limitations, is free to investigate the true essence of justice. Civic justice is
concerned with the here-and-now and presupposes a mechanical absorption of rules and
regulations, whereas philosophical examination leads to an understanding of justice as an
absolute, non-relativistic value. This dichotomy between temporal and a-temporal justice rests
on a more fundamental conceptual opposition between a civic morality and a godlike
distancing from civic preoccupations. Godlikeness, Socrates contends, requires a certain
degree of withdrawal from earthly affairs and an attempt to emulate divine intelligence and
morality. The otherworldliness of the digression has attracted the attention of, among others,
Aristotle, in Nicomachean Ethics X 7, and Plotinus, who in Enneads I 2, offers an extended
commentary of the text.

In his third argument against broad Protagoreanism, Socrates exposes the flawed nature of
Protagoras definition of expertise, as a skill that points out what is beneficial, by contrasting
sensible propertiessuch as hot, which may indeed be immune to interpersonal correction
and values, like the good and the beneficial, whose essence is independent from individual
appearances. The reason for this, Socrates argues, is that the content of value-judgments is
properly assessed by reference to how things will turn out in the future. Experts are thus
people who have the capacity to foresee the future effects of present causes. One may be an
infallible judge of whether one is hot now, but only the expert physician is able accurately to
tell today whether one will be feverish tomorrow. Thus the predictive powers of expertise cast
the last blow on the moral and epistemological dimensions of Protagorean Relativism.

In order to attack narrow Protagoreanism, which fully identifies knowledge with perception,
Socrates proposes to investigate the doctrines Heraclitean underpinnings. The question he
now poses is: how radical does the Flux to which the Heracliteans are committed to must be
in order for the definition of knowledge as perception to emerge as coherent and plausible?
His answer is that the nature of Flux that sanctions Theaetetus account must be very radical,
indeed too radical for the definition itself to be either expressible or defensible. As we saw
earlier, the Secret Doctrine postulated two kinds of motion: the parents of the perceptual event
undergo qualitative change, while its twin offspring undergoes locomotive change. To the
question whether the Heracliteans will grant that everything undergoes both kinds of change,
Socrates replies in the affirmative because, were that not the case, both change and stability
would be observed in the Heraclitean world of Flux. If then everything is characterized by all
kinds of change at all times, what can we say about anything? The answer is nothing
because the referents of our discourse would be constantly shifting, and thus we would be
deprived of the ability to formulate any words at all about anything. Consequently,
Theaetetus identification of knowledge with perception is deeply problematic because no
single act can properly be called perception rather than non perception, and the
definiendum is left with no definiens.

After Socrates has shown that narrow Protagoreanism, from within the ontological framework
of radical Heracliteanism, is untenable, he proceeds to reveal the inherent faultiness of
Theaetetus definition of knowledge as perception. In his final and most decisive argument,
Socrates makes the point that perhaps the most basic thought one can have about two
perceptible things, say a color and a sound, is that they both are. This kind of thought goes
beyond the capacity of any one sense: sight cannot assess the being of sound, nor can
hearing assess that of color. Among these common categories, i.e., categories to which no
single sensual organ can afford access, Socrates includes same, different, one, and
two, but also values, such as fair and foul. All of these are ascertained by the soul
through its own resources, with no recourse to the senses. Theaetetus adds that the soul
seems to be making a calculation within itself of past and present in relation to future
(186b). This remark ties in with Socrates earlier attribution to expertise of the ability to
predict the future outcome of present occurrences. But it also transcends that assertion in the
sense that now a single unified entity, the soul, is given cognitive supremacy, in some cases
with the assistance of the senses whereas in other cases the soul itself by itself. Perception is
thus shown to be an inadequate candidate for knowledge, and the discussion needs to
foreground the activity of the soul when it is busying itself over the things-which-are
(187a). The name of that activity is judging, and it is to this that the second part of the
conversation now turns.

c. Knowledge as True Judgment (187a 201c)

While true judgment, as the definiens of knowledge, is the ostensible topic of the discussants
new round of conversation, the de facto topic turns out to be false judgment. Judgment, as the
souls internal reasoning function, is introduced into the discussion at this juncture, which
leads Theaetetus to the formulation of the identification of knowledge with true judgment. But
Socrates contends that one cannot make proper sense of the notion of true judgment, unless
one can explain what a false judgment is, a topic that also emerges in such dialogues as
Euthydemus, Cratylus, Sophist, Philebus, and Timaeus. In order to examine the meaning of
false judgment, he articulates five essentially abortive ways of looking at it: (a) false
judgment as mistaking one thing for another (188ac); (b) false judgment as thinking what
is not (188c189b); (c) false judgment as other-judgment (189b191a); (d) false judgment
as the inappropriate linkage of a perception to a memory the mind as a wax tablet (191a
196c); and (e) potential and actual knowledge the mind as an aviary (196d200c).

The impossibility of false judgment as mistaking one thing for another is demonstrated by
the apparent plausibility of the following perceptual claim: one cannot judge falsely that one
person is another person, whether one knows one of them, or both of them, or neither one nor
the other. The argument concerning false judgment as thinking what is not rests on an
analogy between sense-perception and judgment: if one hears or feels something, there must
be something which one hears or feels. Likewise, if one judges something, there must be
something that one judges. Hence, one cannot judge what is not, for ones judgment would
in that case have no object, one would judge nothing, and so would make no judgment at all.
This then cannot be a proper account of false judgment. The interlocutors failure prompts a
third attempt at solving the problem: perhaps, Socrates suggests, false judgment occurs when
a man, in place of one of the things that are, has substituted in his thought another of the
things that are and asserts that it is. In this way, he is always judging something which is, but
judges one thing in place of another; and having missed the thing which was the object of his
consideration, he might fairly be called one who judges falsely (189c). False judgment then
is not concerned with what-is-not, but with interchanging one of the things-which-are with
some other of the things-which-are, for example beautiful with ugly, just with unjust, odd
with even, and cow with horse. The absurdity of this substitution is reinforced by Socrates
definition of judgment as the final stage of the minds conversing with itself. How is it
possible, then, for one to conclude ones silent, internal dialogue with the preposterous
equation of two mutually exclusive attributes, and actually to say to oneself, an odd number
is even, or oddness is evenness?

The next attempt at explaining false judgment invokes the mental acts of remembering and
forgetting and the ways in which they are implicated in perceptual events. Imagine the mind
as a wax block, Socrates asks Theaetetus, on which we stamp what we perceive or conceive.
Whatever is impressed upon the wax we remember and know, so long as the image remains in
the wax; whatever is obliterated or cannot be impressed, we forget and do not know (191d-e).
False judgment consists in matching the perception to the wrong imprint, e.g., seeing at a
distance two men, both of whom we know, we may, in fitting the perceptions to the memory
imprints, transpose them; or we may match the sight of a man we know to the memory
imprint of another man we know, when we only perceive one of them. Theaetetus accepts this
model enthusiastically but Socrates dismisses it because it leaves open the possibility of
confusing unperceived concepts, such as numbers. One may wrongly think that 7+5 = 11, and
since 7+5 = 12, this amounts to thinking that 12 is 11. Thus arithmetical errors call for the
positing of a more comprehensive theoretical account of false judgment.

Socrates next explanatory model, the aviary, is meant to address this particular kind of error.
What Aristotle later called a distinction between potentiality and actuality becomes the
conceptual foundation of this model. Socrates invites us to think of the mind as an aviary full
of birds of all sorts. The owner possesses them, in the sense that he has the ability to enter the
aviary and catch them, but does not have them, unless he literally has them in his hands. The
birds are pieces of knowledge, to hand them over to someone else is to teach, to stock the
aviary is to learn, to catch a particular bird is to remember a thing once learned and thus
potentially known. The possibility of false judgment emerges when one enters the aviary in
order to catch, say, a pigeon but instead catches, say, a ring-dove. To use an arithmetical
example, one who has learned the numbers knows, in the sense that he possesses the
knowledge of, both 11 and 12. If, when asked what is 7+5, one replies 11, one has hunted in
ones memory for 12 but has activated instead ones knowledge of 11. Although the aviarys
distinction between potential and actual knowledge improves our understanding of the nature
of episteme, it is soon rejected by Socrates on the grounds that it explains false judgment as
the interchange of pieces of knowledge (199c). Even if one, following Theaetetus
suggestion, were willing to place in the aviary not only pieces of knowledge but also pieces of
ignorancethereby making false judgment be the apprehension of a piece of ignorancethe
question of false judgment would not be answered satisfactorily; for in that case, as Socrates
says, the man who catches a piece of ignorance would still believe that he has caught a piece
of knowledge, and therefore would behave as if he knew. To go back to the arithmetical
example mentioned earlier, Theaetetus suggests that the mistaking of 11 for 12 happens
because the man making the judgment mistakes a piece of ignorance for a piece of knowledge
but acts as if he has activated his capacity for knowing. The problem is, as Socrates says, that
we would need to posit another aviary to explain how the judgment-maker mistakes a piece of
ignorance for a piece of knowledge.

Socrates attributes their failure to explain false judgment to their attempting to do so before
they have settled the question of the nature of knowledge. Theaetetus repeats his definition of
knowledge as true judgment but Socrates rejects it by means of the following argument:
suppose, he says, the members of a jury are justly persuaded of some matter, which only an
eye-witness could know and which cannot otherwise be known; suppose they come to their
decision upon hearsay, forming a true judgment. Hence, they have decided the case without
knowledge, but, granted they did their job well, they were correctly persuaded (201b-c). This
argument shows that forming a true opinion about something by means of persuasion is
different from knowing it by an appeal to the only method by means of which it can be
knownin this case by seeing itand thus knowledge and true judgment cannot be the same.
After the failure of this attempt, Socrates and Theaetetus proceed to their last attempt to
define knowledge.

d. Knowledge as True Judgment with Logos (201c 210d)

Theaetetus remembers having heard that knowledge is true judgment accompanied by Logos
(account), adding that only that which has Logos can be known. Since Theaetetus remembers
no more, Socrates decides to help by offering a relevant theory that he once heard.

According to the Dream Theory (201d-206b), the world is composed of complexes and their
elements. Complexes have Logos, while elements have none, but can only be named. It is not
even possible to say of an element that it is or it is not, because adding Being or non-
Being to it would be tantamount to making it a complex. Elements cannot be accounted for or
known, but are perceptible. Complexes, on the contrary, can be known because one can have
a true belief about them and give an account of them, which is essentially a complex of
names (202b).

After Theaetetus concedes that this is the theory he has in mind, he and Socrates proceed to
examine it. In order to pinpoint the first problematic feature of the theory, Socrates uses the
example of letters and syllables: the Logos of the syllable so the first syllable of Socrates
name is s and o; but one cannot give a similar Logos of the syllables elements, namely of
s and o, since they are mere noises. In that case, Socrates wonders, how can a complex of
unknowable elements be itself knowable? For if the complex is simply the sum of its
elements, then the knowledge of it is predicated on knowledge of its elements, which is
impossible; if, on the other hand, the complex is a single form produced out of the
collocation of its elements, it will still be an indefinable simple. The only reasonable thing to
say then is that the elements are much more clearly known than the complexes.

Now, turning to the fourth definition of knowledge as true judgment accompanied by Logos,
Socrates wishes to examine the meaning of the term Logos, and comes up with three possible
definitions. First, giving an account of something is making ones thought apparent vocally
by means of words and verbal expressions (206c). The problem with this definition is that
Logos becomes a thing that everyone is able to do more or less readily, unless one is deaf or
dumb, so that anyone with a true opinion would have knowledge as well. Secondly, to give an
account of a thing is to enumerate all its elements (207a). Hesiod said that a wagon contains a
hundred timbers. If asked what a wagon is, the average person will most probably say,
wheels, axle, body, rails, yoke. But that would be ridiculous, Socrates says, because it
would be the same as giving the syllables of a name to someones asking for an account of it.
The ability to do that does not preclude the possibility that a person identifies now correctly
and now incorrectly the elements of the same syllable in different contexts. Finally, giving an
account is defined as being able to tell some mark by which the object you are asked about
differs from all other things (208c). As an example, Socrates uses the definition of the sun as
the brightest of the heavenly bodies that circle the earth. But here again, the definition of
knowledge as true judgment with Logos is not immune to criticism. For if someone, who is
asked to tell what distinguishes, say, Theaetetus, a man of whom he has a correct judgment,
from all other things, were to say that he is a man, and has a nose, mouth, eyes, and so on, his
account would not help to distinguish Theaetetus from all other men. But if he had not already
in his mind the means of differentiating Theaetetus from everyone else, he could not judge
correctly who Theaetetus was and could not recognize him the next time he saw him. So to
add Logos in this sense to true judgment is meaningless, because Logos is already part of true
judgment, and so cannot itself be a guarantee of knowledge. To say that Logos is knowledge
of the difference does not solve the problem, since the definition of knowledge as true
judgment plus knowledge of the difference begs the question of what knowledge is.

The definition of knowledge as true judgment plus Logos cannot be sustained on any of the
three interpretations of the term Logos. Theaetetus has nothing else to say, and the dialogue
ends inconclusively. Its achievement, according to Socrates, has been to rid Theaetetus of
several false beliefs so that if ever in the future [he] should attempt to conceive or should
succeed in conceiving other theories, they will be better ones as the result of this enquiry
(210bc).

Despite its failure to produce a viable definition of knowledge, the Theaetetus has exerted
considerable influence on modern philosophical thought. Socrates blurring of the distinction
between sanity and madness in his examination of knowledge as perception was picked up in
the first of Descartes Meditations (1641); echoes of Protagorean Relativism have appeared in
important works of modern philosophy, such as Quines Ontological Relativity and Other
Essays (1969) and Kuhns The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970); In Siris: A Chain of
Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water (1744), Bishop
Berkeley thought that the dialogue anticipated the central tenets of his own theory of
knowledge; in Studies in Humanism (1907), the English pragmatist F.C.S. Schiller saw in the
section 166a ff. the pragmatist account of truth, first expounded and then condemned; and L.
Wittgenstein, in Philosophical Investigations (1953), found in the passage 201d202b the
seed of his Logical Atomism, espoused also by Russell, and found it reminiscent of certain
theses of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

4. References and Further Reading

a. General Commentaries

Bostock, D. Plato's Theaetetus. Oxford, 1988.

 Burnyeat, M. F. The Theaetetus of Plato. Trans. M.J. Levett. Indianapolis and
Cambridge, 1990.
Campbell, L. The Theaetetus of Plato. 2nd Ed. Oxford, 1883.
Cornford, F. M. Platos Theory of Knowledge. The Theaetetus and the Sophist of
Plato. Trans. F. M. Cornford. London, 1935.
McDowell, J. Plato: Theaetetus. Trans. J. McDowell. Oxford, 1973.
Polansky, R. Philosophy and Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus.
Lewisburg, 1992.
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b. Knowledge as Arts and Sciences

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c. Knowledge as Perception

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Plato: Phaedo
 The Phaedo is one of the most widely read dialogues
written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It claims to recount the events and
conversations that occurred on the day that Platos teacher, Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.), was
put to death by the state of Athens. It is the final episode in the series of dialogues recounting
Socrates trial and death. The earlier Euthyphro dialogue portrayed Socrates in discussion
outside the court where he was to be prosecuted on charges of impiety and corrupting the
youth; the Apology described his defense before the Athenian jury; and the Crito described a
conversation during his subsequent imprisonment. The Phaedo now brings things to a close
by describing the moments in the prison cell leading up to Socrates death from poisoning by
use of hemlock.

Among these trial and death dialogues, the Phaedo is unique in that it presents Platos own
metaphysical, psychological, and epistemological views; thus it belongs to Platos middle
period rather than with his earlier works detailing Socrates conversations regarding ethics.
Known to ancient commentators by the title On the Soul, the dialogue presents no less than
four arguments for the souls immortality. It also contains discussions of Platos doctrine of
knowledge as recollection, his account of the souls relationship to the body, and his views
about causality and scientific explanation. Most importantly of all, Plato sets forth his most
distinctive philosophical theorythe theory of Formsfor what is arguably the first time. So,
the Phaedo merges Platos own philosophical worldview with an enduring portrait of Socrates
in the hours leading up to his death.

Table of Contents

1. The Place of the Phaedo within Platos works

2. Drama and Doctrine
3. Outline of the Dialogue
1. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)
2. Three Arguments for the Souls Immortality (69e-84b)
1. The Cyclical Argument (70c-72e)
2. The Argument from Recollection (72e-78b)
3. The Affinity Argument (78b-84b)
3. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates Response (84c-107b)
 1.
The Objections (85c-88c)
2.
Interlude on Misology (89b-91c)
3.
Response to Simmias (91e-95a)
4.
Response to Cebes (95a-107b)
1. Socrates Intellectual History (96a-102a)
2. The Final Argument (102b-107b)
4. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)
5. Socrates Death (115a-118a)
4. References and Further Reading
1. General Commentaries
2. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)
3. Three Arguments for the Souls Immortality (69e-84b)
4. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates Response (84c-107b)
5. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)
6. Socrates Death (115a-118a)

1. The Place of the Phaedo within Platos works

Plato wrote approximately thirty dialogues. The Phaedo is usually placed at the beginning of
his middle period, which contains his own distinctive views about the nature of knowledge,
reality, and the soul, as well as the implications of these views for human ethical and political
life. Its middle-period classification puts it after early dialogues such as the Apology,
Euthyphro, Crito, Protagoras, and others which present Socrates searchusually
inconclusivefor ethical definitions, and before late dialogues like the Parmenides,
Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. Within the middle dialogues, it is uncontroversial that
the Phaedo was written before the Republic, and most scholars think it belongs before the
Symposium as well. Thus, in addition to being an account of what Socrates said and did on
the day he died, the Phaedo contains what is probably Platos first overall statement of his
own philosophy. His most famous theory, the theory of Forms, is presented in four different
places in the dialogue.

2. Drama and Doctrine

In addition to its central role in conveying Platos philosophy, the Phaedo is widely agreed to
be a masterpiece of ancient Greek literature. Besides philosophical argumentation, it contains
a narrative framing device that resembles the chorus in Greek tragedy, references to the Greek
myth of Theseus and the fables of Aesop, Platos own original myth about the afterlife, and in
its opening and closing pages, a moving portrait of Socrates in the hours leading up to his
death. Plato draws attention (at 59b) to the fact that he himself was not present during the
events retold, suggesting that he wants the dialogue to be seen as work of fiction.

Contemporary commentators have struggled to put together the dialogues dramatic

components with its lengthy sections of philosophical argumentationmost importantly, with
the four arguments for the souls immortality, which tend to strike even Platos charitable
interpreters as being in need of further defense. (Socrates himself challenges his listeners to
provide such defense at 84c-d.) How seriously does Plato take these arguments, and what
does the surrounding context contribute to our understanding of them? While this article will
concentrate on the philosophical aspects of the Phaedo, readers are advised to pay close
attention to the interwoven dramatic features as well.
3. Outline of the Dialogue
The dialogue revolves around the topic of death and immortality: how the philosopher is
supposed to relate to death, and what we can expect to happen to our souls after we die. The
text can be divided, rather unevenly, into five sections:

(1) an initial discussion of the philosopher and death (59c-69e)

(2) three arguments for the souls immortality (69e-84b)

(3) some objections to these arguments from Socrates interlocutors and his response, which
includes a fourth argument (84c-107b)

(4) a myth about the afterlife (107c-115a)

(5) a description of the final moments of Socrates life (115a-118a)

The dialogue commences with a conversation (57a-59c) between two characters, Echecrates
and Phaedo, occurring sometime after Socrates death in the Greek city of Phlius. The former
asks the latter, who was present on that day, to recount what took place. Phaedo begins by
explaining why some time had elapsed between Socrates trial and his execution: the
Athenians had sent their annual religious mission to Delos the day before the trial, and
executions are forbidden until the mission returns. He also lists the friends who were present
and describes their mood as an unaccustomed mixture of pleasure and pain, since Socrates
appeared happy and without fear but his friends knew that he was going to die. He agrees to
tell the whole story from the beginning; within this story the main interlocutors are Socrates,
Simmias, and Cebes. Some commentators on the dialogue have taken the latter two
characters to be followers of the philosopher Pythagoras (570-490 B.C).

a. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)

Socrates friends learn that he will die on the present day, since the mission from Delos has
returned. They go in to the prison to find Socrates with his wife Xanthippe and their baby,
who are then sent away. Socrates, rubbing the place on his leg where his just removed bonds
had been, remarks on how strange it is that a man cannot have both pleasure and pain at the
same time, yet when he pursues and catches one, he is sure to meet with the other as well.
Cebes asks Socrates about the poetry he is said to have begun writing, since Evenus (a Sophist
teacher, not present) was wondering about this. Socrates relates how certain dreams have
caused him to do so, and says that he is presently putting Aesops fables into verse. He then
asks Cebes to convey to Evenus his farewell, and to tell him thateven though it would be
wrong to take his own lifehe, like any philosopher, should be prepared to follow Socrates to
his death.

Here the conversation turns toward an examination of the philosophers attitude toward
death. The discussion starts with the question of suicide. If philosophers are so willing to die,
asks Cebes, why is it wrong for them to kill themselves? Socrates initial answer is that the
gods are our guardians, and that they will be angry if one of their possessions kills itself
without permission. As Cebes and Simmias immediately point out, however, this appears to
contradict his earlier claim that the philosopher should be willing to die: for what truly wise
man would want to leave the service of the best of all masters, the gods?

In reply to their objection, Socrates offers to make a defense of his view, as if he were in
court, and submits that he hopes this defense will be more convincing to them than it was to
the jury. (He is referring here, of course, to his defense at his trial, which is recounted in
Platos Apology.) The thesis to be supported is a generalized version of his earlier advice to
Evenus: that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to
practice for dying and death (64a3-4).

Socrates begins his defense of this thesis, which takes up the remainder of the present section,
by defining death as the separation of body and soul. This definition goes unchallenged by
his interlocutors, as does its dualistic assumption that body and soul are two distinct entities.
(The Greek word psuch is only roughly approximate to our word soul; the Greeks thought
of psuch as what makes something alive, and Aristotle talks about non-human animals and
even plants as having souls in this sense.) Granted that death is a soul/body separation,
Socrates sets forth a number of reasons why philosophers are prepared for such an event.
First, the true philosopher despises bodily pleasures such as food, drink, and sex, so he more
than anyone else wants to free himself from his body (64d-65a). Additionally, since the
bodily senses are inaccurate and deceptive, the philosophers search for knowledge is most
successful when the soul is most by itself.

The latter point holds especially for the objects of philosophical knowledge that Plato later on
in the dialogue (103e) refers to as Forms. Here Forms are mentioned for what is perhaps
the first time in Platos dialogues: the Just itself, the Beautiful, and the Good; Bigness, Health,
and Strength; and in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them
essentially is (65d). They are best approached not by sense perception but by pure thought
alone. These entities are granted again without argument by Simmias and Cebes, and are
discussed in more detail later. .

All told, then, the body is a constant impediment to philosophers in their search for truth: It
fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said,
in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body (66c). To have
pure knowledge, therefore, philosophers must escape from the influence of the body as much
as is possible in this life. Philosophy itself is, in fact, a kind of training for dying (67e), a
purification of the philosophers soul from its bodily attachment.

Thus, Socrates concludes, it would be unreasonable for a philosopher to fear death, since upon
dying he is most likely to obtain the wisdom which he has been seeking his whole life. Both
the philosophers courage in the face of death and his moderation with respect to bodily
pleasures which result from the pursuit of wisdom stand in stark contrast to the courage and
moderation practiced by ordinary people. (Wisdom, courage, and moderation are key virtues
in Platos writings, and are included in his definition of justice in the Republic.) Ordinary
people are only brave in regard to some things because they fear even worse things
happening, and only moderate in relation to some pleasures because they want to be
immoderate with respect to others. But this is only an illusory appearance of virtuefor as
it happens, moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and
wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing or purification (69b-c). Since Socrates counts himself
among these philosophers, why wouldnt he be prepared to meet death? Thus ends his
defense.
b. Three Arguments for the Souls Immortality (69e-84b)

But what about those, says Cebes, who believe that the soul is destroyed when a person dies?
To persuade them that it continues to exist on its own will require some compelling
argument. Readers should note several important features of Cebes brief objection (70a-b).
First, he presents the belief in the immortality of the soul as an uncommon belief (men find it
hard to believe . . .). Secondly, he identifies two things which need to be demonstrated in
order to convince those who are skeptical: (a) that the soul continues to exist after a persons
death, and (b) that it still possesses intelligence. The first argument that Socrates deploys
appears to be intended to respond to (a), and the second to (b).

i. The Cyclical Argument (70c-72e)

Socrates mentions an ancient theory holding that just as the souls of the dead in the
underworld come from those living in this world, the living souls come back from those of the
dead (70c-d). He uses this theory as the inspiration for his first argument, which may be
reconstructed as follows:

1. All things come to be from their opposite states: for example, something that comes to be
larger must necessarily have been smaller before (70e-71a).

2. Between every pair of opposite states there are two opposite processes: for example,
between the pair smaller and larger there are the processes increase and decrease
(71b).

3. If the two opposite processes did not balance each other out, everything would eventually
be in the same state: for example, if increase did not balance out decrease, everything would
keep becoming smaller and smaller (72b).

4. Since being alive and being dead are opposite states, and dying and coming-to-life
are the two opposite processes between these states, coming-to-life must balance out dying
(71c-e).

5. Therefore, everything that dies must come back to life again (72a).

A main question that arises in regard to this argument is what Socrates means by opposites.
We can see at least two different ways in which this term is used in reference to the opposed
states he mentions. In a first sense, it is used for comparatives such as larger and smaller
(and also the pairs weaker/stronger and swifter/slower at 71a), opposites which admit of
various degrees and which even may be present in the same object at once (on this latter
point, see 102b-c). However, Socrates also refers to being alive and being dead as
oppositesbut this pair is rather different from comparative states such as larger and smaller,
since something cant be deader, but only dead. Being alive and being dead are what
logicians call contraries (as opposed to contradictories, such as alive and not-alive,
which exclude any third possibility). With this terminology in mind, some contemporary
commentators have maintained that the argument relies on covertly shifting between these
different kinds of opposites.

Clever readers may notice other apparent difficulties as well. Does the principle about
balance in (3), for instance, necessarily apply to living things? Couldnt all life simply cease
to exist at some point, without returning? Moreover, how does Plato account for adding new
living souls to the human population? While these questions are perhaps not unanswerable
from the point of view of the present argument, we should keep in mind that Socrates has
several arguments remaining, and he later suggests that this first one should be seen as
complementing the second (77c-d).

ii. The Argument from Recollection (72e-78b)

Cebes mentions that the souls immortality also is supported by Socrates theory that learning
is recollection (a theory which is, by most accounts, distinctively Platonic, and one that
plays a role in his dialogues Meno and Phaedrus as well). As evidence of this theory he
mentions instances in which people can recollect answers to questions they did not
previously appear to possess when this knowledge is elicited from them using the proper
methods. This is likely a reference to the Meno (82b ff.), where Socrates elicits knowledge
about basic geometry from a slave-boy by asking the latter a series of questions to guide him
in the right direction. Asked by Simmias to elaborate further upon this doctrine, Socrates
explains that recollection occurs when a man sees or hears or in some other way perceives
one thing and not only knows that thing but also thinks of another thing of which the
knowledge is not the same but different . . . (73c). For example, when a lover sees his
beloveds lyre, the image of his beloved comes into his mind as well, even though the lyre and
the beloved are two distinct things.

Based on this theory, Socrates now commences a second proof for the souls immortality
one which is referred to with approval in later passages in the dialogue (77a-b, 87a, 91e-92a,
and 92d-e). The argument may be reconstructed as follows:

1. Things in the world which appear to be equal in measurement are in fact deficient in the
equality they possess (74b, d-e).

2. Therefore, they are not the same as true equality, that is, the Equal itself (74c).

3. When we see the deficiency of the examples of equality, it helps us to think of, or
recollect, the Equal itself (74c-d).

4. In order to do this, we must have had some prior knowledge of the Equal itself (74d-e).

5. Since this knowledge does not come from sense-perception, we must have acquired it
before we acquired sense-perception, that is, before we were born (75b ff.).

6. Therefore, our souls must have existed before we were born. (76d-e)

With regard to premise (1), in what respect are this-worldly instances of equality deficient?
Socrates mentions that two apparently equal sticks, for example, fall short of true equality
and are thus inferior to it (74e). Why? His reasoning at 74b8-9that the sticks
sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal and another to be
unequalis notoriously ambiguous, and has been the subject of much scrutiny. He could
mean that the sticks may appear as equal or unequal to different observers, or perhaps they
appear as equal when measured against one thing but not another. In any case, the notion that
the sensible world is imperfect is a standard view of the middle dialogues (see Republic 479b-
c for a similar example), and is emphasized further in his next argument.
By true equality and the Equal itself in premises (2)-(4), Socrates is referring to the Form
of Equality. It is this entity with respect to which the sensible instances of equality fall
shortand indeed, Socrates says that the Form is something else beyond all these. His
brief argument at 74a-c that true equality is something altogether distinct from any visible
instances of equality is of considerable interest, since it is one of few places in the middle
dialogues where he makes an explicit argument for why there must be Forms. The conclusion
of the second argument for the souls immortality extends what has been said about equality
to other Forms as well: If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and
the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality,
discovering that it existed before and is ours, and we compare these things with it, then, just
as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are born (76d-e). The process of recollection
is initiated not just when we see imperfectly equal things, then, but when we see things that
appear to be beautiful or good as well; experience of all such things inspires us to recollect the
relevant Forms. Moreover, if these Forms are never available to us in our sensory experience,
we must have learned them even before we were capable of having such experience.

Simmias agrees with the argument so far, but says that this still does not prove that our souls
exist after death, but only before birth. This difficulty, Socrates suggests, can be resolved by
combining the present argument with the one from opposites: the soul comes to life from out
of death, so it cannot avoid existing after death as well. He does not elaborate on this
suggestion, however, and instead proceeds to offer a third argument.

iii. The Affinity Argument (78b-84b)

The third argument for the souls immortality is referred to by commentators as the affinity
argument, since it turns on the idea that the soul has a likeness to a higher level of reality:

1. There are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that we perceive with our senses,
which is human, mortal, composite, unintelligible, and always changing, and (b) the invisible
world of Forms that we can access solely with our minds, which is divine, deathless,
intelligible, non-composite, and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).

2. The soul is more like world (b), whereas the body is more like world (a) (79b-e).

3. Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily influence through philosophical training,
the soul is most likely to make its way to world (b) when the body dies (80d-81a). (If,
however, the soul is polluted by bodily influence, it likely will stay bound to world (a) upon
death (81b-82b).)

Note that this argument is intended to establish only the probability of the souls continued
existence after the death of the bodywhat kind of thing, Socrates asks at the outset, is
likely to be scattered [after the death of the body]? (78b; my italics) Further, premise (2)
appears to rest on an analogy between the soul and body and the two kinds of realities
mentioned in (1), a style of argument that Simmias will criticize later (85e ff.). Indeed, since
Plato himself appends several pages of objections by Socrates interlocutors to this argument,
one might wonder how authoritative he takes it to be.

Yet Socrates reasoning about the soul at 78c-79a states an important feature of Platos
middle period metaphysics, sometimes referred to as his two-world theory. In this picture
of reality, the world perceived by the senses is set against the world of Forms, with each
world being populated by fundamentally different kinds of entities:

The World of the Senses The World of Forms

Composites (that is, things with parts) Non-composites
Things that never remain the same from one Things that always remain the same and dont
moment to the next tolerate any change
Any particular thing that is equal, beautiful, The Equal, the Beautiful, and what each thing
and so forth is in itself
That which is visible That which is grasped by the mind and
invisible

Since the body is like one world and the soul like the other, it would be strange to think that
even though the body lasts for some time after a persons death, the soul immediately
dissolves and exists no further. Given the respective affinities of the body and soul, Socrates
spends the rest of the argument (roughly 80d-84b) expanding on the earlier point (from his
defense) that philosophers should focus on the latter. This section has some similarities to
the myth about the afterlife, which he narrates near the dialogues end; note that some of the
details of the account here of what happens after death are characterized as merely likely. A
soul which is purified of bodily things, Socrates says, will make its way to the divine when
the body dies, whereas an impure soul retains its share in the visible after death, becoming a
wandering phantom. Of the impure souls, those who have been immoderate will later become
donkeys or similar animals, the unjust will become wolves or hawks, those with only ordinary
non-philosophical virtue will become social creatures such as bees or ants.

The philosopher, on the other hand, will join the company of the gods. For philosophy brings
deliverance from bodily imprisonment, persuading the soul to trust only itself and whatever
reality, existing by itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true whatever it
examines by other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and
visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and indivisible (83a6-b4). The
philosopher thus avoids the greatest and most extreme evil that comes from the senses: that
of violent pleasures and pains which deceive one into thinking that what causes them is
genuine. Hence, after death, his soul will join with that to which it is akin, namely, the divine.

c. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates Response (84c-107b)

After a long silence, Socrates tells Simmias and Cebes not to worry about objecting to any of
what he has just said. For he, like the swan that sings beautifully before it dies, is dedicated to
the service of Apollo, and thus filled with a gift of prophecy that makes him hopeful for what
death will bring.

i. The Objections (85c-88c)

Simmias prefaces his objection by making a remark about methodology. While certainty, he
says, is either impossible or difficult, it would show a weak spirit not to make a complete
investigation. If at the end of this investigation one fails to find the truth, one should adopt
the best theory and cling to it like a raft, either until one dies or comes upon something
sturdier.
This being said, he proceeds to challenge Socrates third argument. For one might put forth a
similar argument which claims that the soul is like a harmony and the body is like a lyre and
its strings. In fact, Simmias claims that we really do suppose the soul to be something of this
kind, that is, a harmony or proper mixture of bodily elements like the hot and cold or dry and
moist (86b-c). (Some commentators think the we here refers to followers of Pythagoras.)
But even though a musical harmony is invisible and akin to the divine, it will cease to exist
when the lyre is destroyed. Following the soul-as-harmony thesis, the same would be true of
the soul when the body dies.

Next Socrates asks if Cebes has any objections. The latter says that he is convinced by
Socrates argument that the soul exists before birth, but still doubts whether it continues to
exist after death. In support of his doubt, he invokes a metaphor of his own. Suppose
someone were to say that since a man lasts longer than his cloak, it follows that if the cloak is
still there the man must be there too. We would certainly think this statement was nonsense.
(He appears to be refering to Socrates argument at 80c-e here.) Just as a man might wear out
many cloaks before he dies, the soul might use up many bodies before it dies. So even
supposing everything else is granted, if one does not further agree that the soul is not
damaged by its many births and is not, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths,
he might say that no one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the
destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this (88a-b). In light of this
uncertainty, one should always face death with fear.

ii. Interlude on Misology (89b-91c)

After a short exchange in the meta-dialogue in which Phaedo and Echecrates praise Socrates
pleasant attitude throughout this discussion, Socrates begins his response with a warning that
they not become misologues. Misology, he says, arises in much the same way that
misanthropy does: when someone with little experience puts his trust in another person, but
later finds him to be unreliable, his first reaction is to blame this on the depraved nature of
people in general. If he had more knowledge and experience, however, he would not be so
quick to make this leap, for he would realize that most people fall somewhere in between the
extremes of good and bad, and he merely happened to encounter someone at one end of the
spectrum. A similar caution applies to arguments. If someone thinks a particular argument is
sound, but later finds out that it is not, his first inclination will be to think that all arguments
are unsound; yet instead of blaming arguments in general and coming to hate reasonable
discussion, we should blame our own lack of skill and experience.

iii. Response to Simmias (91e-95a)

Socrates then puts forth three counter-arguments to Simmias objection. To begin, he gets
both Simmias and Cebes to agree that the theory of recollection is true. But if this is so, then
Simmias is not able to harmonize his view that the soul is a harmony dependent on the body
with the recollection view that the soul exists before birth. Simmias admits this
inconsistency, and says that he in fact prefers the theory of recollection to the other view.
Nonetheless, Socrates proceeds to make two additional points. First, if the soul is a harmony,
he contends, it can have no share in the disharmony of wickedness. But this implies that all
souls are equally good. Second, if the soul is never out of tune with its component parts (as
shown at 93a), then it seems like it could never oppose these parts. But in fact it does the
opposite, ruling over all the elements of which one says it is composed, opposing nearly all
of them throughout life, directing all their ways, inflicting harsh and painful punishment on
them, . . . holding converse with desires and passions and fears, as if it were one thing talking
to a different one . . . (94c9-d5). A passage in Homer, wherein Odysseus beats his breast and
orders his heart to endure, strengthens this picture of the opposition between soul and bodily
emotions. Given these counter-arguments, Simmias agrees that the soul-as-harmony thesis
cannot be correct.

iv. Response to Cebes (95a-107b)

1. Socrates Intellectual History (96a-102a)

After summarizing Cebes objection that the soul may outlast the body yet not be immortal,
Socrates says that this problem requires a thorough investigation of the cause of generation
and destruction (96a; the Greek word aitia, translated as cause, has the more general
meaning of explanation). He now proceeds to relate his own examinations into this subject,
recalling in turn his youthful puzzlement about the topic, his initial attraction to a solution
given by the philosopher Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.), and finally his development of his own
method of explanation involving Forms. It is debated whether this account is meant to
describe Socrates intellectual autobiography or Platos own, since the theory of Forms
generally is described as the latters distinctive contribution. (Some commentators have
suggested that it may be neither, but instead just good storytelling on Platos part.)

When Socrates was young, he says, he was excited by natural science, and wanted to know
the explanation of everything from how living things are nourished to how things occur in the
heavens and on earth. But then he realized that he had no ability for such investigations, since
they caused him to unlearn many of the things he thought he had previously known. He used
to think, for instance, that people grew larger by various kinds of external nourishment
combining with the appropriate parts of our bodies, for example, by food adding flesh to
flesh. But what is it which makes one person larger than another? Or for that matter, which
makes one and one add up to two? It seems like it cant be simply the two things coming near
one another. Because of puzzles like these, Socrates is now forced to admit his ignorance: I
do not any longer persuade myself that I know why a unit or anything else comes to be, or
perishes or exists by the old method of investigation, and I do not accept it, but I have a
confused method of my own (97b).

This method came about as follows. One day after his initial setbacks Socrates happened to
hear of Anaxagoras view that Mind directs and causes all things. He took this to mean that
everything was arranged for the best. Therefore, if one wanted to know the explanation of
something, one only had to know what was best for that thing. Suppose, for instance, that
Socrates wanted to know why the heavenly bodies move the way they do. Anaxagoras would
show him how this was the best possible way for each of them to be. And once he had taught
Socrates what the best was for each thing individually, he then would explain the overall good
that they all share in common. Yet upon studying Anaxagoras further, Socrates found these
expectations disappointed. It turned out that Anaxagoras did not talk about Mind as cause at
all, but rather about air and ether and other mechanistic explanations. For Socrates, however,
this sort of explanation was simply unacceptable:

To call those things causes is too absurd. If someone said that without bones and sinews and
all such things, I should not be able to do what I decided, he would be right, but surely to say
that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have chosen the best course, even though I
act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly. Imagine not being able to distinguish
the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. (99a-b)

Frustrated at finding a teacher who would provide a teleological explanation of these

phenomena, Socrates settled for what he refers to as his second voyage (99d). This new
method consists in taking what seems to him to be the most convincing theorythe theory of
Formsas his basic hypothesis, and judging everything else in accordance with it. In other
words, he assumes the existence of the Beautiful, the Good, and so on, and employs them as
explanations for all the other things. If something is beautiful, for instance, the safe answer
he now offers for what makes it such is the presence of, or sharing in, the Beautiful
(100d). Socrates does not go into any detail here about the relationship between the Form and
object that shares in it, but only claims that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful
(100d). In regard to the phenomena that puzzled him as a young man, he offers the same
answer. What makes a big thing big, or a bigger thing bigger, is the Form Bigness. Similarly,
if one and one are said to be two, it is because they share in Twoness, whereas previously
each shared in Oneness.

2. The Final Argument (102b-107b)

When Socrates has finished describing this method, both Simmias and Cebes agree that what
he has said is true. Their accord with his view is echoed in another brief interlude by
Echecrates and Phaedo, in which the former says that Socrates has made these things
wonderfully clear to anyone of even the smallest intelligence, and Phaedo adds that all those
present agreed with Socrates as well. Returning again to the prison scene, Socrates now uses
this as the basis of a fourth argument that the soul is immortal. One may reconstruct this
argument as follows:

1. Nothing can become its opposite while still being itself: it either flees away or is destroyed
at the approach of its opposite. (For example, tallness cannot become shortness while
still being hot.) (102d-103a)

2. This is true not only of opposites, but in a similar way of things that contain opposites.
(For example, fire and snow are not themselves opposites, but fire always brings hot
with it, and snow always brings cold with it. So fire will not become cold without
ceasing to be fire, nor will snow become hot without ceasing to be snow.) (103c-
105b)

3. The soul always brings life with it. (105c-d)

4. Therefore soul will never admit the opposite of life, that is, death, without ceasing to
be soul. (105d-e)

5. But what does not admit death is also indestructible. (105e-106d)

6. Therefore, the soul is indestructible. (106e-107a)

When someone objects that premise (1) contradicts his earlier statement (at 70d-71a) about
opposites arising from one another, Socrates responds that then he was speaking of things
with opposite properties, whereas here is talking about the opposites themselves. Careful
readers will distinguish three different ontological items at issue in this passage:
(a) the thing (for example, Simmias) that participates in a Form (for example, that of
Tallness), but can come to participate in the opposite Form (of Shortness) without thereby
changing that which it is (namely, Simmias)

(b) the Form (for example, of Tallness), which cannot admit its opposite (Shortness)

(c) the Form-in-the-thing (for example, the tallness in Simmias), which cannot admit its
opposite (shortness) without fleeing away of being destroyed

Premise (2) introduces another item:

(d) a kind of entity (for example, fire) that, even though it does not share the same name as a
Form, always participates in that Form (for example, Hotness), and therefore always excludes
the opposite Form (Coldness) wherever it (fire) exists

This new kind of entity puts Socrates beyond the safe answer given before (at 100d) about
how a thing participates in a Form. His new, more sophisticated answer is to say that what
makes a body hot is not heatthe safe answerbut rather an entity such as fire. In like
manner, what makes a body sick is not sickness but fever, and what makes a number odd is
not oddness but oneness (105b-c). Premise (3) then states that the soul is this sort of entity
with respect to the Form of Life. And just as fire always brings the Form of Hotness and
excludes that of Coldness, the soul will always bring the Form of Life with it and exclude its
opposite.

However, one might wonder about premise (5). Even though fire, to return to Socrates
example, does not admit Coldness, it still may be destroyed in the presence of something
coldindeed, this was one of the alternatives mentioned in premise (1). Similarly, might not
the soul, while not admitting death, nonetheless be destroyed by its presence? Socrates tries
to block this possibility by appealing to what he takes to be a widely shared assumption,
namely, that what is deathless is also indestructible: All would agree . . . that the god, and the
Form of Life itself, and anything that is deathless, are never destroyed (107d). For readers
who do not agree that such items are deathless in the first place, however, this sort of appeal is
unlikely to be acceptable.

Simmias, for his part, says he agrees with Socrates line of reasoning, although he admits that
he may have misgivings about it later on. Socrates says that this is only because their
hypotheses need clearer examinationbut upon examination they will be found convincing.

d. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)

The issue of the immortality of the soul, Socrates says, has considerable implications for
morality. If the soul is immortal, then we must worry about our souls not just in this life but
for all time; if it is not, then there are no lasting consequences for those who are wicked. But
in fact, the soul is immortal, as the previous arguments have shown, and Socrates now begins
to describe what happens when it journeys to the underworld after the death of the body. The
ensuing tale tells us of

(1) the judgment of the dead souls and their subsequent journey to the underworld (107d-
108c)
(2) the shape of the earth and its regions (108c-113c)

(3) the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the pious philosophers (113d-114c)

Commentators commonly refer to this story as a myth, and Socrates himself describes it this
way (using the Greek word muthos at 110b, which earlier on in the dialogue (61b) he has
contrasted with logos, or argument.). Readers should be aware that for the Greeks myth did
not have the negative connotations it often carries today, as when we say, for instance, that
something is just a myth or when we distinguish myth from fact. While Platos relation to
traditional Greek mythology is a complex onesee his critique of Homer and Hesiod in
Republic Book II, for instancehe himself uses myths to bolster his doctrines not only in the
Phaedo, but in dialogues such as the Gorgias, Republic, and Phaedrus as well.

At the end of his tale, Socrates says that what is important about his story is not its literal
details, but rather that we risk the belief that this, or something like this, is true about our
souls and their dwelling places, and repeat such a tale to ourselves as though it were an
incantation (114d). Doing so will keep us in good spirits as we work to improve our souls
in this life. The myth thus reinforces the dialogues recommendation of the practice of
philosophy as care for ones soul.

e. Socrates Death (115a-118a)

The depiction of Socrates death that closes the Phaedo is rich in dramatic detail. It also is
complicated by a couple of difficult interpretative questions.

After Socrates has finished his tale about the afterlife, he says that it is time for him to prepare
to take the hemlock poison required by his death sentence. When Crito asks him what his
final instructions are for his burial, Socrates reminds him that what will remain with them
after death is not Socrates himself, but rather just his body, and tells him that they can bury it
however they want. Next he takes a bathso that his corpse will not have to be cleaned post-
mortemand says farewell to his wife and three sons. Even the officer sent to carry out
Socrates punishment is moved to tears at this point, and describes Socrates as the noblest,
the gentlest and the best man who has ever been at the prison.

Crito tells Socrates that some condemned men put off taking the poison for as long as
possible, in order to enjoy their last moments in feasting or sex. Socrates, however, asks for
the poison to be brought immediately. He drinks it calmly and in good cheer, and chastises
his friends for their weeping. When his legs begin to feel heavy, he lies down; the numbness
in his body travels upward until eventually it reaches his heart.

Some contemporary scholars have challenged Platos description of hemlock-poisoning,

arguing that in fact the symptoms would have been much more violent than the relatively
gentle death he depicts. If these scholars are right, why does Plato depict the death scene the
way he does? There is also a dispute about Socrates last words, which invoke a sacrificial
offering made by the sick to the god of medicine: Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make
this offering to him and do not forget. Did Socrates view life as a kind of sickness?

4. References and Further Reading

a. General Commentaries

Bostock, D. Platos Phaedo. Oxford, 1986.

o In-depth yet accessible discussion of the dialogues arguments (does not
include text of the Phaedo). Includes a helpful chapter on the theory of Forms.
Dorter, K. Platos Phaedo: An Interpretation. University of Toronto Press, 1982.
o Reading of the dialogue that combines both dramatic and doctrinal approaches
(does not include text of the Phaedo).
Gallop, D. Plato: Phaedo. Oxford, 1975.
o English translation with separate commentary that focuses on the dialogues
argumentation.
Hackforth, R. Platos Phaedo: Translated with an Introduction and Commentary.
Cambridge, 1955.
o English translation with running commentary.
Rowe, C.J. Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge, 1993.
o Original Greek text (no English) with introduction and detailed textual
commentary.

b. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)

Pakaluk, M. Degrees of Separation in the Phaedo. Phronesis 48 (2003) 89-115.

o Discusses Platos notion of the soul-body distinction at 63a-69e.
Warren, J. Socratic Suicide. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001) 91-106.
o On the Platonic philosophers attitude toward suicide in the 61e-69e passage.
Weiss, R. "The Right Exchange: Phaedo 69a6-c3". Ancient Philosophy 7 (1987) 57-
66.
o Examines the notion that wisdom is the highest goal of the philosopher.

c. Three Arguments for the Souls Immortality (69e-84b)

Ackrill, J.L. Anamnsis in the Phaedo, in E.N. Lee and A.P.D. Mourelatos
(eds.) Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory
Vlastos. Assen, 1973. 177-95.
o On the theory of recollection (73c-75).
Apolloni, D. Platos Affinity Argument for the Immortality of the Soul. Journal of
the History of Philosophy 34 (1996) 5-32.
o A study of the argument at 78b-80d.
Gallop, D. Platos Cyclical Argument Recycled. Phronesis 27 (1982) 207-222.
o On the first argument for the souls immortality (69e-72e) and its relation to
the other arguments.
Matthen, M. Forms and Participants in Platos Phaedo. Nos 18:2 (1984) 281-297.
o Discusses Platos argument concerning equals at 74b7-c6.
Nehamas, A. Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World, in G. Fine, ed., Plato
1: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford, 1999. 171-191.
o On Platos view of sensible particulars, especially at 72e-78b.

d. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates Response (84c-107b)

Frede, D. The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Platos Phaedo 102a-
107a. Phronesis 23 (1978) 27-41.
 o A defense of Platos argument and examination of its underlying assumptions
regarding the soul.
Gottschalk, H.D. Soul as Harmonia. Phronesis 16 (1971) 179-198.
o Discusses Simmias account of the soul beginning at 85e.
Vlastos, G. Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo, in Plato: A Collection of Critical
Essays, Vol. I: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books,
1971.
o Are Forms causes? An examination of 95e-105c.
Wiggins, D. Teleology and the Good in Platos Phaedo. Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy 4 (1986) 1-18.
o On Socrates second voyage beginning at 99c2-d1.

e. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)

Annas, J. Platos Myths of Judgment. Phronesis 27 (1982) 119-43.

o A study of Platos myths in the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic.
Morgan, K.A. Myth and Philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Plato. Cambridge,
2000.
o Includes extensive background on myth in Plato, as well as discussion of
the Phaedo myth in particular.
Sedley, D. Teleology and Myth in the Phaedo. Proceedings of the Boston Area
Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 5 (1990) 35983.

f. Socrates Death (115a-118a)

Crook, J. Socrates Last Words: Another Look at an Ancient Riddle. Classical

Quarterly 48 (1998) 117-125.
o The papers by Crook and Most (cited below) consider some puzzles regarding
Socrates final words at the dialogues end.
Gill, C. The Death of Socrates. Classical Quarterly 23 (1973) 25-25.
o On the finer details of hemlock-poisoning.
Most, G.W. A Cock for Asclepius. Classical Quarterly 43 (1993) 96-111.
Stewart, D. Socrates Last Bath. Journal of the History of Philosophy 10 (1972)
253-9.
o Looks at the deeper meaning of Socrates bath at 116a.
Wilson, E. The Death of Socrates. Harvard University Press, 2007.
o Includes discussion of the death scene in the Phaedo, as well as its subsequent
reception in Western philosophy, art, and culture.

6. The Soul and Psychology

Soul is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or realization of a natural body. From
this definition it follows that there is a close connection between psychological states, and
physiological processes. Body and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an
impression stamped on it are unified. Metaphysicians before Aristotle discussed the soul
abstractly without any regard to the bodily environment; this, Aristotle believes, was a
mistake. At the same time, Aristotle regards the soul or mind not as the product of the
physiological conditions of the body, but as the truth of the body -- the substance in which
only the bodily conditions gain their real meaning.
The soul manifests its activity in certain "faculties" or "parts" which correspond with the
stages of biological development, and are the faculties of nutrition (peculiar to plants), that of
movement (peculiar to animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These faculties
resemble mathematical figures in which the higher includes the lower, and must be
understood not as like actual physical parts, but like suchaspects as convex and concave
which we distinguish in the same line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is absurd
to speak of it, as Plato did, as desiring with one part and feeling anger with another. Sense
perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of outward objects independently of the matter
of which they are composed, just as the wax takes on the figure of the seal without the gold or
other metal of which the seal is composed. As the subject of impression, perception involves a
movement and a kind of qualitative change; but perception is not merely a passive or
receptive affection. It in turn acts, and,distinguishing between the qualities of outward things,
becomes "a movement of the soul through the medium of the body."

The objects of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color is the special object of
sight, and sound of hearing), (2) common, or apprehended by several senses in combination
(such as motion or figure), or (3) incidental or inferential (such as when from the immediate
sensation of white we come to know a person or object which is white). There are five special
senses. Of these, touch is the must rudimentary, hearing the most instructive, and sight the
most ennobling. The organ in these senses never acts directly , but is affected by some
medium such as air. Even touch, which seems to act by actual contact, probably involves
some vehicle of communication. For Aristotle, the heart is the common or central sense organ.
It recognizes the common qualities which are involved in all particular objects of sensation. It
is, first, the sense which brings us a consciousness of sensation. Secondly, in one act before
the mind, it holds up the objects of our knowledge and enables us to distinguish between the
reports of different senses.

Aristotle defines the imagination as "the movement which results upon an actual sensation."
In other words, it is the process by which an impression of the senses is pictured and retained
before the mind, and is accordingly the basis of memory. The representative pictures which it
provides form the materials of reason. Illusions and dreams are both alike due to an
excitement in the organ of sense similar to that which would be caused by the actual presence
of the sensible phenomenon. Memory is defined as the permanent possession of the sensuous
picture as a copy which represents the object of which it is a picture. Recollection, or the
calling back to mind the residue of memory, depends on the laws which regulate the
association of our ideas. We trace the associations by starting with the thought of the object
present to us, then considering what is similar, contrary or contiguous.

Reason is the source of the first principles of knowledge. Reason is opposed to the sense
insofar as sensations are restricted and individual, and thought is free and universal. Also,
while the senses deals with the concrete and material aspect of phenomena, reason deals with
the abstract and ideal aspects. But while reason is in itself the source of general ideas, it is so
only potentially. For, it arrives at them only by a process of development in which it gradually
clothes sense in thought, and unifies and interprets sense-presentations. This work of reason in
thinking beings suggests the question: How can immaterial thought come to receive material
things? It is only possible in virtue of some community between thought and things. Aristotle
recognizes an active reason which makes objects of thought. This is distinguished from
passive reason which receives, combines and compares the objects of thought. Active reason
makes the world intelligible, and bestows on the materials of knowledge those ideas or
categories which make them accessible to thought. This is just as the sun communicates to
material objects that light, without which color would be invisible, and sight would have no
object. Hence reason is the constant support of an intelligible world. While assigning reason
to the soul of humans, Aristotle describes it as coming from without, and almost seems to
identify it with God as the eternal and omnipresent thinker. Even in humans, in short, reason
realizes something of the essential characteristic of absolute thought -- the unity of thought as
subject with thought as object.

Gottfried Leibniz: Philosophy of Mind

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a true

polymath: he made substantial contributions to a host of different fields such as mathematics,
law, physics, theology, and most subfields of philosophy. Within the philosophy of mind, his
chief innovations include his rejection of the Cartesian doctrines that all mental states are
conscious and that non-human animals lack souls as well as sensation. Leibnizs belief that
non-rational animals have souls and feelings prompted him to reflect much more thoroughly
than many of his predecessors on the mental capacities that distinguish human beings from
lower animals. Relatedly, the acknowledgment of unconscious mental representations and
motivations enabled Leibniz to provide a far more sophisticated account of human
psychology. It also led Leibniz to hold that perceptionrather than consciousness, as
Cartesians assumeis the distinguishing mark of mentality.

The capacities that make human minds superior to animal souls, according to Leibniz, include
not only their capacity for more elevated types of perceptions or mental representations, but
also their capacity for more elevated types of appetitions or mental tendencies. Self-
consciousness and abstract thought are examples of perceptions that are exclusive to rational
souls, while reasoning and the tendency to do what one judges to be best overall are examples
of appetitions of which only rational souls are capable. The mental capacity for acting freely
is another feature that sets human beings apart from animals and it in fact presupposes the
capacity for elevated kinds of perceptions as well as appetitions.

Another crucial contribution to the philosophy of mind is Leibnizs frequently cited mill
argument. This argument is supposed to show, through a thought experiment that involves
walking into a mill, that material things such as machines or brains cannot possibly have
mental states. Only immaterial things, that is, soul-like entities, are able to think or perceive.
If this argument succeeds, it shows not only that our minds must be immaterial or that we
must have souls, but also that we will never be able to construct a computer that can truly
think or perceive.

Finally, Leibnizs doctrine of pre-established harmony also marks an important innovation in

the history of the philosophy of mind. Like occasionalists, Leibniz denies any genuine
interaction between body and soul. He agrees with them that the fact that my foot moves
when I decide to move it, as well as the fact that I feel pain when my body gets injured,
cannot be explained by a genuine causal influence of my soul on my body, or of my body on
my soul. Yet, unlike occasionalists, Leibniz also rejects the idea that God continually
intervenes in order to produce the correspondence between my soul and my body. That,
Leibniz thinks, would be unworthy of God. Instead, God has created my soul and my body in
such a way that they naturally correspond to each other, without any interaction or divine
intervention. My foot moves when I decide to move it because this motion has been
programmed into it from the very beginning. Likewise, I feel pain when my body is injured
because this pain was programmed into my soul. The harmony or correspondence between
mental states and states of the body is therefore pre-established.

Table of Contents

1. Leibnizian Minds and Mental States

1. Perceptions
1. Consciousness, Apperception, and Reflection
2. Abstract Thought, Concepts, and Universal Truths
2. Appetitions
2. Freedom
3. The Mill Argument
4. The Relation between Mind and Body
5. References and Further Reading
1. Primary Sources in English Translation
2. Secondary Sources

1. Leibnizian Minds and Mental States

Leibniz is a panpsychist: he believes that everything, including plants and inanimate objects,
has a mind or something analogous to a mind. More specifically, he holds that in all things
there are simple, immaterial, mind-like substances that perceive the world around them.
Leibniz calls these mind-like substances monads. While all monads have perceptions,
however, only some of them are aware of what they perceive, that is, only some of them
possess sensation or consciousness. Even fewer monads are capable of self-consciousness
and rational perceptions. Leibniz typically refers to monads that are capable of sensation or
consciousness as souls, and to those that are also capable of self-consciousness and rational
perceptions as minds. The monads in plants, for instance, lack all sensation and
consciousness and are hence neither souls nor minds; Leibniz sometimes calls this least
perfect type of monad a bare monad and compares the mental states of such monads to our
states when we are in a stupor or a dreamless sleep. Animals, on the other hand, can sense
and be conscious, and thus possess souls (see Animal Minds). God and the souls of human
beings and angels, finally, are examples of minds because they are self-conscious and
rational. As a result, even though there are mind-like things everywhere for Leibniz, minds in
the stricter sense are not ubiquitous.

All monads, even those that lack consciousness altogether, have two basic types of mental
states: perceptions, that is, representations of the world around them, and appetitions, or
tendencies to transition from one representation to another. Hence, even though monads are
similar to the minds or souls described by Descartes in some waysafter all, they are
immaterial substancesconsciousness is not an essential property of monads, while it is an
essential property of Cartesian souls. For Leibniz, then, the distinguishing mark of mentality
is perception, rather than consciousness (see Simmons 2001). In fact, even Leibnizian minds
in the stricter sense, that is, monads capable of self-consciousness and reasoning, are quite
different from the minds in Descartess system. While Cartesian minds are conscious of all
their mental states, Leibnizian minds are conscious only of a small portion of their states. To
us it may seem obvious that there is a host of unconscious states in our minds, but in the
seventeenth century this was a radical and novel notion. This profound departure from
Cartesian psychology allows Leibniz to paint a much more nuanced picture of the human
mind.

One crucial aspect of Leibnizs panpsychism is that in addition to the rational monad that is
the soul of a human being, there are non-rational, bare monads everywhere in the human
beings body. Leibniz sometimes refers to the soul of a human being or animal as the central
or dominant monad of the organism. The bare monads that are in an animals body,
accordingly, are subordinate to its dominant monad or soul. Even plants, for Leibniz, have
central or dominant monads, but because they lack sensation, these dominant monads cannot
strictly speaking be called souls. They are merely bare monads, like the monads that are
subordinate to them.

The claim that there are mind-like things everywhere in naturein our bodies, in plants, and
even in inanimate objectsstrikes many readers of Leibniz as ludicrous. Yet, Leibniz thinks
he has conclusive metaphysical arguments for this claim. Very roughly, he holds that a
complex, divisible thing such as a body can only be real if it is made up of parts that are real.
If the parts in turn have parts, those have to be real as well. The problem is, Leibniz claims,
that matter is infinitely divisible: we can never reach parts that do not themselves have parts.
Even if there were material atoms that we cannot actually divide, they must still be spatially
extended, like all matter, and therefore have spatial parts. If something is spatially extended,
after all, we can at least in thought distinguish its left half from its right half, no matter how
small it is. As a result, Leibniz thinks, purely material things are not real. The reality of
complex wholes depends on the reality of their parts, but with purely material things, we
never get to parts that are real since we never reach an end in this quest for reality. Leibniz
concludes that there must be something in nature that is not material and not divisible, and
from which all things derive their reality. These immaterial, indivisible things just are
monads. Because of the role they play, Leibniz sometimes describes them as atoms of
substance, that is, real unities absolutely destitute of parts, [] the first absolute principles of
the composition of things, and, as it were, the final elements in the analysis of substantial
things (p. 142. For a more thorough description of monads, see Leibniz: Metaphysics, as
well as the Monadology and the New System of Nature, both included in Ariew and Garber.)

a. Perceptions

As already seen, all monads have perceptions, that is, they represent the world around them.
Yet, not all perceptionsnot even all the perceptions of mindsare conscious. In fact,
Leibniz holds that at any given time a mind has infinitely many perceptions, but is conscious
only of a very small number of them. Even souls and bare monads have an infinity of
perceptions. This is because Leibniz believes, for reasons that need not concern us here (but
see Leibniz: Metaphysics), that each monad constantly perceives the entire universe. For
instance, even though I am not aware of it at all, my mind is currently representing every
single grain of sand on Mars. Even the monads in my little toe, as well as the monads in the
apple I am about to eat, represent those grains of sand.

Leibniz often describes perceptions of things of which the subject is unaware and which are
far removed from the subjects body as confused. He is fond of using the sound of the
ocean as a metaphor for this kind of confusion: when I go to the beach, I do not hear the
sound of each individual wave distinctly; instead, I hear a roaring sound from which I am
unable to discern the sounds of the individual waves (see Principles of Nature and Grace,
section 13, in Ariew and Garber, 1989). None of these individual sounds stands out. Leibniz
claims that confused perceptions in monads are analogous to this confusion of sounds, except
of course for the fact that monads do not have to be aware even of the confused whole. To the
extent that a perception does stand out from the rest, however, Leibniz calls it distinct. This
distinctness comes in degrees, and Leibniz claims that the central monads of organisms
always perceive their own bodies more distinctly than they perceive other bodies.

Bare monads are not capable of very distinct perceptions; their perceptual states are always
muddled and confused to a high degree. Animal souls, on the other hand, can have much
more distinct perceptions than bare monads. This is in part because they possess sense
organs, such as eyes, which allow them to bundle and condense information about their
surroundings (see Principles of Nature and Grace, section 4). The resulting perceptions are
so distinct that the animals can remember them later, and Leibniz calls this kind of perception
sensation. The ability to remember prior perceptions is extremely useful, as a matter of fact,
because it enables animals to learn from experience. For instance, a dog that remembers
being beaten with a stick can learn to avoid sticks in the future (see Principles of Nature and
Grace, section 5, in Ariew and Garber, 1989). Sensations are also tied to pleasure and pain:
when an animal distinctly perceives some imperfection in its body, such as a bruise, this
perception just is a feeling of pain. Similarly, when an animal perceives some perfection of
its body, such as nourishment, this perception is pleasure. Unlike Descartes, then, Leibniz
believed that animals are capable of feeling pleasure and pain.

Consequently, souls differ from bare monads in part through the distinctness of their
perceptions: unlike bare monads, souls can have perceptions that are distinct enough to give
rise to memory and sensation, and they can feel pleasure and pain. Rational souls, or minds,
share these capacities. Yet they are additionally capable of perceptions of an even higher
level. Unlike the souls of lower animals, they can reflect on their own mental states, think
abstractly, and acquire knowledge of necessary truths. For instance, they are capable of
understanding mathematical concepts and proofs. Moreover, they can think of themselves as
substances and subjects: they have the ability to use and understand the word I (see
Monadology, section 30). These kinds of perceptions, for Leibniz, are distinctively rational
perceptions, and they are exclusive to minds or rational souls.

It is clear, then, that there are different types of perceptions: some are unconscious, some are
conscious, and some constitute reflection or abstract thought. What exactly distinguishes
these types of perceptions, however, is a complicated question that warrants a more detailed
investigation.

i. Consciousness, Apperception, and Reflection

Why are some perceptions conscious, while others are not? In one text, Leibniz explains the
difference as follows: it is good to distinguish between perception, which is the internal state
of the monad representing external things, and apperception, which is consciousness, or the
reflective knowledge of this internal state, something not given to all souls, nor at all times to
a given soul (Principles of Nature and Grace, section 4). This passage is interesting for
several reasons: Leibniz not only equates consciousness with what he calls apperception,
and states that only some monads possess it. He also seems to claim that conscious
perceptions differ from other perceptions in virtue of having different types of things as their
objects: while unconscious perceptions represent external things, apperception or
consciousness has perceptions, that is, internal things, as its object. Consciousness is
therefore closely connected to reflection, as the term reflective knowledge also makes clear.

The passage furthermore suggests that Leibniz understands consciousness in terms of higher-
order mental states because it says that in order to be conscious of a perception, I must
possess reflective knowledge of that perception. One way of interpreting this statement is
to understand these higher-order mental states as higher-order perceptions: in order to be
conscious of a first-order perception, I must additionally possess a second-order perception of
that first-order perception. For example, in order to be conscious of the glass of water in front
of me, I must not only perceive the glass of water, but I must also perceive my perception of
the glass of water. After all, in the passage under discussion, Leibniz defines consciousness
or apperception as the reflective knowledge of a perception. Such higher-order theories of
consciousness are still endorsed by some philosophers of mind today (see Consciousness).
For an alternative interpretation of Leibnizs theory of consciousness, however, see Jorgensen
2009, 2011a, and 2011b).

There is excellent textual evidence that according to Leibniz, consciousness or apperception is

not limited to minds, but is instead shared by animal souls. One passage in which Leibniz
explicitly ascribes apperception to animals is from the New Essays: beasts have no
understanding although they have the faculty for apperceiving the more conspicuous and
outstanding impressionsas when a wild boar apperceives someone who is shouting at it (p.
173). Moreover, Leibniz sometimes claims that sensation involves apperception (e.g. New
Essays p. 161; p. 188), and since animals are clearly capable of sensation, they must thus
possess some form of apperception. Hence, it seems that Leibniz ascribes apperception to
animals, which in turn he elsewhere identifies with consciousness.

Yet, the textual evidence for animal consciousness is unfortunately anything but neat because
in the New Essaysthat is, in the very same textLeibniz also suggests that there is an
important difference between animals and human beings somewhere in this neighborhood. In
several passages, he says that any creature with consciousness has a moral or personal
identity, which in turn is something he grants only to minds. He states, for instance, that
consciousness or the sense of I proves moral or personal identity (New Essays, p. 236).
Hence, it seems clear that for Leibniz there is something in the vicinity of consciousness that
animals lack and that minds possess, and which is crucial for morality.

A promising solution to this interpretive puzzle is the following: what animals lack is not
consciousness generally, but only a particular type of consciousness. More specifically, while
they are capable of consciously perceiving external things, they lack awareness, or at least a
particular type of awareness, of the self. In the Monadology, for instance, Leibniz argues that
knowledge of necessary truths distinguishes us from animals and that through this knowledge
we rise to reflexive acts, which enable us to think of that which is called I and enable us to
consider that this or that is in us (sections 29-30). Similarly, he writes in the Principles of
Nature and Grace that minds are capable of performing reflective acts, and capable of
considering what is called I, substance, soul, mindin brief, immaterial things and
immaterial truths (section 5). Self-knowledge, or self-consciousness, then, appears to be
exclusive to rational souls. Leibniz moreover connects this consciousness of the self to
personhood and moral responsibility in several texts, such as for instance in the Theodicy: In
saying that the soul of man is immortal one implies the subsistence of what makes the identity
of the person, something which retains its moral qualities, conserving the consciousness, or
the reflective inward feeling, of what it is: thus it is rendered susceptible to chastisement or
reward (section 89).

Based on these passages, it seems that one crucial cognitive difference between human beings
and animals is that even though animals possess the kind of apperception that is involved in
sensation and in an acute awareness of external objects, they lack a certain type of
apperception or consciousness, namely reflective self-knowledge or self-consciousness.
Especially because of the moral implications of this kind of consciousness that Leibniz
posits, this difference is clearly an extremely important one. According to these texts, then, it
is not consciousness or apperception tout court that distinguishes minds from animal souls,
but rather a particular kind of apperception. What animals are incapable of, according to
Leibniz, is self-knowledge or self-awareness, that is, an awareness not only of their
perceptions, but also of the self that is having those perceptions.

Because Leibniz associates consciousness so closely with reflection, one might wonder
whether the fact that animals are capable of conscious perceptions implies that they are also
capable of reflection. This is another difficult interpretive question because there appears to
be evidence both for a positive and for a negative answer. Reflection, according to Leibniz, is
nothing but attention to what is within us (New Essays, p. 51). Moreover, as already seen,
he argues that reflective acts enable us to think of that which is called I and to consider
that this or that is in us (Monadology, section 30). Leibniz does not appear to ascribe
reflection to animals explicitly, and in fact, there are several texts in which he says in no
uncertain terms that they lack reflection altogether. He states for instance that the soul of a
beast has no more reflection than an atom (Loemker, p. 588). Likewise, he defines
intellection as a distinct perception combined with a faculty of reflection, which the beasts
do not have (New Essays, p. 173) and explains that just as there are two sorts of perception,
one simple, the other accompanied by reflections that give rise to knowledge and reasoning,
so there are two kinds of souls, namely ordinary souls, whose perception is without reflection,
and rational souls, which think about what they do (Strickland, p. 84).
On the other hand, as seen, Leibniz does ascribe apperception or consciousness to animals,
and consciousness in turn appears to involve higher-order mental states. This suggests that
Leibnizian animals must perceive or know their own perceptions when they are conscious of
something, and that in turn seems to imply that they can reflect after all. A closely related
reason for ascribing reflection to animals is that Leibniz sometimes explicitly associates
reflection with apperception or consciousness. In a passage already quoted above, for
instance, Leibniz defines consciousness as the reflective knowledge of a first-order
perception. Hence, if animals possess consciousness it seems that they must also have some
type of reflection.

We are consequently faced with an interpretive puzzle: even though there is strong indirect
evidence that Leibniz attributes reflection to animals, there is also direct evidence against it.
There are at least two ways of solving this puzzle. In order to make sense of passages in
which Leibniz restricts reflection to rational souls, one can either deny that perceiving ones
internal states is sufficient for reflection, or one can distinguish between different types of
reflection, in such a way that the most demanding type of reflection is limited to minds. One
good way to deny that perception of ones internal states is sufficient for reflection is to point
out that Leibniz defines reflection as attention to what is within us (New Essays, p. 51),
rather than as perception of what is within us. Attention to internal states, arguably, is more
demanding than mere perception of these states, and animals may well be incapable of the
former. Attention might be a particularly distinct perception, for instance. Alternatively, one
can argue that reflection requires a self-concept, or self-knowledge, which also goes beyond
the mere perception of internal states and may be inaccessible to animals. Perceiving my
internal states, on that interpretation, amounts to reflection only if I also possess knowledge of
the self that is having those states. Instead of denying that perceiving ones own states is
sufficient for reflection, one can also distinguish different types of reflection and claim that
while the mere perception of ones internal states is a type of reflection, there is a more
demanding type of reflection that requires attention, a self-concept, or something similar.
Yet, the difference between those two responses appears to be merely terminological. Based
on the textual evidence discussed above, it is clear that either reflection generally, or at least a
particular type of reflection, must be exclusive to minds.

ii. Abstract Thought, Concepts, and Universal Truths

So far, we have seen that one cognitive capacity that elevates minds above animal souls is
self-consciousness, which is a particular type of reflection. Before turning to appetitions, we
should briefly investigate three additional, mutually related, cognitive abilities that only minds
possess, namely the abilities to abstract, to form or possess concepts, and to know general
truths. In what may well be Leibnizs most intriguing discussion of abstraction, he says that
some non-human animals apparently recognize whiteness, and observe it in chalk as in
snow; but it does not amount to abstraction, which requires attention to the general apart from
the particular, and consequently involves knowledge of universal truths which beasts do not
possess (New Essays, p. 142). In this passage, we learn not only that beasts are incapable of
abstraction, but also that abstraction involves attention to the general apart from the
particular as well as knowledge of universal truths. Hence, abstraction for Leibniz seems
to consist in separating out one part of a complex idea and focusing on it exclusively. Instead
of thinking of different white things, one must think of whiteness in general, abstracting away
from the particular instances of whiteness. In order to think about whiteness in the abstract,
then, it is not enough to perceive different white things as similar to one another.
Yet, it might still seem mysterious how precisely animals should be able to observe whiteness
in different objects if they are unable to abstract. One fact that makes this less mysterious,
however, is that, on Leibnizs view, while animals are unable to pay attention to whiteness in
general, the idea of whiteness may nevertheless play a role in their recognition of whiteness.
As Leibniz explains in the New Essays, even though human minds are aware of complex ideas
and particular truths first as well as rather easily, and have to expend a lot of effort to
subsequently achieve awareness of simple ideas and general principles, the order of nature is
the other way around:

The truths that we start by being aware of are indeed particular ones, just as we start with the
coarsest and most composite ideas. But that doesnt alter the fact that in the order of nature
the simplest comes first, and that the reasons for particular truths rest wholly on the more
general ones of which they are mere instances. The mind relies on these principles
constantly; but it does not find it so easy to sort them out and to command a distinct view of
each of them separately, for that requires great attention to what it is doing. (p. 83f.)

Here, Leibniz says that minds can rely on general principles, or abstract ideas, without being
aware of them, and without having distinct perceptions of them separately. This might help
us to explain how animals can observe whiteness in different white objects without being able
to abstract: the simple idea of whiteness might play a role in their cognition, even though they
are not aware of it, and are unable to pay attention to this idea.

The passage just quoted is interesting for another reason: It shows that abstracting and
achieving knowledge of general truths have a lot in common and presuppose the capacity to
reflect. It takes a special effort of mind to become aware of abstract ideas and general truths,
that is, to separate these out from complex ideas and particular truths. It is this special effort,
it seems, of which animals are incapable; while they can at times achieve relatively distinct
perceptions of complex or particular things, they lack the ability to pay attention, or at least
sufficient attention, to their internal states. At least part of the reason for their inability to
abstract and to know general truths, then, appears to be their inability, or at least very limited
ability, to reflect.

Abstraction also seems closely related to the possession or formation of concepts: arguably,
what a mind gains when abstracting the idea of whiteness from the complex ideas of
particular white things is what we would call a concept of whiteness. Hence, since animals
cannot abstract, they do not possess such concepts. They may nevertheless, as suggested
above, have confused ideas such as a confused idea of whiteness that allows them to
recognize whiteness in different white things, without enabling them to pay attention to
whiteness in the abstract.

An interesting question that arises in this context is the question whether having an idea of the
future or thinking about a future state requires abstraction. One reason to think so is that,
plausibly, in order to think about the future, for instance about future pleasures or pains, one
needs to abstract from the present pleasures or pains that one can directly experience, or from
past pleasures and pains that one remembers. After all, just as one can only attain the concept
of whiteness by abstracting from other properties of the particular white things one has
experienced, so, arguably, one can only acquire the idea of future pleasures through
abstraction from particular present pleasures. It may be for this reason that Leibniz
sometimes notes that animals have neither foresight nor anxiety for the future (Huggard, p.
414). Apparently, he does not consider animals capable of having an idea of the future or of
future states.

Leibniz thinks that in addition to sensible concepts such as whiteness, we also have concepts
that are not derived from the senses, that is, we possess intellectual concepts. The latter, it
seems, set us apart even farther from animals because we attain them through reflective self-
awareness, of which animals, as seen above, are not capable. Leibniz says, for instance, that
being is innate in usthe knowledge of being is comprised in the knowledge that we have of
ourselves. Something like this holds of other general notions (New Essays, p. 102).
Similarly, he states a few pages later that reflection enables us to find the idea of substance
within ourselves, who are substances (New Essays, p. 105). Many similar statements can be
found elsewhere. The intellectual concepts that we can discover in our souls, according to
Leibniz, include not only being and substance, but also unity, similarity, sameness, pleasure,
cause, perception, action, duration, doubting, willing, and reasoning, to name only a few. In
order to derive these concepts from our reflective self-awareness, we must apparently engage
in abstraction: I am distinctly aware of myself as an agent, a substance, and a perceiver, for
instance, and from this awareness I can abstract the ideas of action, substance, and perception
in general. This means that animals are inferior to us among other things in the following two
ways: they cannot have distinct self-awareness, and they cannot abstract. They would need
both of these capacities in order to form intellectual concepts, and they would need the
latterthat is, abstractionin order to form sensible concepts.

Intellectual concepts are not the only things that minds can find in themselves: in addition,
they are also able to discover eternal or general truths there, such as the axioms or principles
of logic, metaphysics, ethics, and natural theology. Like the intellectual concepts just
mentioned, these general truths or principles cannot be derived from the senses and can thus
be classified as innate ideas. Leibniz says, for instance,

Above all, we find [in this I and in the understanding] the force of the conclusions of
reasoning, which are part of what is called the natural light. It is also by this natural light
that the axioms of mathematics are recognized. [I]t is generally true that we know
[necessary truths] only by this natural light, and not at all by the experiences of the senses.
(Ariew and Garber, p. 189)

Axioms and general principles, according to this passage, must come from the mind itself and
cannot be acquired through sense experience. Yet, also as in the case of intellectual concepts,
it is not easy for us to discover such general truths or principles in ourselves; instead, it takes
effort or special attention. It again appears to require the kind of attention to what is within us
of which animals are not capable. Because they lack this type of reflection, animals are
governed purely by examples from the senses and consequently can never arrive at
necessary and general truths (Strickland p. 84).

b. Appetitions

Monads possess not only perceptions, or representations of the world they inhabit, but also
appetitions. These appetitions are the tendencies or inclinations of these monads to act, that
is, to transition from one mental state to another. The most familiar examples of appetitions
are conscious desires, such as my desire to have a drink of water. Having this desire means
that I have some tendency to drink from the glass of water in front of me. If the desire is
strong enough, and if there are no contrary tendencies or desires in my mind that are
strongerfor instance, the desire to win the bet that I can refrain from drinking water for one
hourI will attempt to drink the water. This desire for water is one example of a Leibnizian
appetition. Yet, just as in the case of perceptions, only a very small portion of appetitions is
conscious. We are unaware of most of the tendencies that lead to changes in our perceptions.
For instance, I am aware neither of perceiving my hair growing, nor of my tendencies to have
those perceptions. Moreover, as in the case of perceptions, there are an infinite number of
appetitions in any monad at any given time. This is because, as seen, each monad represents
the entire universe. As a result, each monad constantly transitions from one infinitely
complex perceptual state to another, reflecting all changes that take place in the universe. The
tendency that leads to a monads transition from one of these infinitely complex perceptual
states to another is therefore also infinitely complex, or composed of infinitely many smaller
appetitions.

The three types of monadsbare monads, souls, and mindsdiffer not only with respect to
their perceptual or cognitive capacities, but also with respect to their appetitive capacities. In
fact, there are good reasons to think that three different types of appetitions correspond to the
three types of perceptions mentioned above, that is, to perception, sensation, and rational
perception. After all, Leibniz distinguishes between appetitions of which we can be aware
and those of which we cannot be aware, which he sometimes also calls insensible
appetitions or insensible inclinations. He appears to further divide the type of which we
can be aware into rational and non-rational appetitions. This threefold division is made
explicit in a passage from the New Essays:

There are insensible inclinations of which we are not aware. There are sensible ones: we are
acquainted with their existence and their objects, but have no sense of how they are
constituted. Finally there are distinct inclinations which reason gives us: we have a sense
both of their strength and of their constitution. (p. 194)

According to this passage, then, Leibniz acknowledges the following three types of
appetitions: (a) insensible or unconscious appetitions, (b) sensible or conscious appetitions,
and (c) distinct or rational appetitions.

Even though Leibniz does not say so explicitly, he furthermore believes that bare monads
have only unconscious appetitions, that animal souls additionally have conscious appetitions,
and that only minds have distinct or rational appetitions. Unconscious appetitions are
tendencies such as the one that leads to my perception of my hair growing, or the one that
prompts me unexpectedly to perceive the sound of my alarm in the morning. All appetitions
in bare monads are of this type; they are not aware of any of their tendencies. An example of
a sensible appetition, on the other hand, is an appetition for pleasure. My desire for a piece of
chocolate, for instance, is such an appetition: I am aware that I have this desire and I know
what the object of the desire is, but I do not fully understand why I have it. Animals are
capable of this kind of appetition; in fact, many of their actions are motivated by their
appetitions for pleasure. Finally, an example of a rational appetition is the appetition for
something that my intellect has judged to be the best course of action. Leibniz appears to
identify the capacity for this kind of appetition with the will, which, as we will see below,
plays a crucial role in Leibnizs theory of freedom. What is distinctive of this kind of
appetition is that whenever we possess it, we are not only aware of it and of its object, but also
understand why we have it. For instance, if I judge that I ought to call my mother and
consequently desire to call her, Leibniz thinks, I am aware of the thought process that led me
to make this judgment, and hence of the origins of my desire.
Another type of rational appetition is the type of appetition involved in reasoning. As seen,
Leibniz thinks that animals, because they can remember prior perceptions, are able to learn
from experience, like the dog that learns to run away from sticks. This sort of behavior,
which involves a kind of inductive inference (see Deductive and Inductive Arguments), can
be called a shadow of reasoning, Leibniz tells us (New Essays, p. 50). Yet, animals are
incapable of truethat is, presumably, deductivereasoning, which, Leibniz tells us,
depends on necessary or eternal truths, such as those of logic, numbers, and geometry, which
bring about an indubitable connection of ideas and infallible consequences (Principles of
Nature and Grace, section 5, in Ariew and Garber, 1989). Only minds can reason in this
stricter sense.

Some interpreters think that reasoning consists simply in very distinct perception. Yet that
cannot be the whole story. First of all, reasoning must involve a special type of perception
that differs from the perceptions of lower animals in kind, rather than merely in degree,
namely abstract thought and the perception of eternal truths. This kind of perception is not
just more distinct; it has entirely different objects than the perceptions of non-rational souls,
as we saw above. Moreover, it seems more accurate to describe reasoning as a special kind of
appetition or tendency than as a special kind of perception. This is because reasoning is not
just one perception, but rather a series of perceptions. Leibniz for instance calls it a chain of
truths (New Essays, p. 199) and defines it as the linking together of truths (Huggard, p.
73). Thus, reasoning is not the same as perceiving a certain type of object, nor as perceiving
an object in a particular fashion. Rather, it consists mainly in special types of transitions
between perceptions and therefore, according to Leibnizs account of how monads transition
from perception to perception, in appetitions for these transitions. What a mind needs in order
to be rational, therefore, are appetitions that one could call the principles of reasoning. These
appetitions or principles allow minds to transition, for instance, from the premises of an
argument to its conclusion. In order to conclude Socrates is mortal from All men are
mortal and Socrates is a man, for example, I not only need to perceive the premises
distinctly, but I also need an appetition for transitioning from premises of a particular form to
conclusions of a particular form.

Leibniz states in several texts that our reasonings are based on two fundamental principles:
the Principle of Contradiction and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Human beings also
have access to several additional innate truths and principles, for instance those of logic,
mathematics, ethics, and theology. In virtue of these principles we have a priori knowledge
of necessary connections between things, while animals can only have empirical knowledge
of contingent, or merely apparent, connections. The perceptions of animals, then, are not
governed by the principles on which our reasonings are based; the closest an animal can come
to reasoning is, as mentioned, engaging in empirical inference or induction, which is based
not on principles of reasoning, but merely on the recognition and memory of regularities in
previous experience. This confirms that reasoning is a type of appetition: using, or being able
to use, principles of reasoning cannot just be a matter of perceiving the world more distinctly.
In fact, these principles are not something that we acquire or derive from perceptions.
Instead, at least the most basic ones are innate dispositions for making certain kinds of
transitions.

In connection with reasoning, it is important to note that even though Leibniz sometimes uses
the term thought for perceptions generally, he makes it clear in some texts that it strictly
speaking belongs exclusively to minds because it is perception joined with reason
(Strickland p. 66; see also New Essays, p. 210). This means that the ability to think in this
sense, just like reasoning, is also something that is exclusive to minds, that is, something that
distinguishes minds from animal souls. Non-rational souls neither reason nor think, strictly
speaking; they do however have perceptions.

The distinctive cognitive and appetitive capacities of the three types of monads are
summarized in the following table:

2. Freedom
One final capacity that sets human beings apart from non-rational animals is the capacity for
acting freely. This is mainly because Leibniz closely connects free agency with rationality:
acting freely requires acting in accordance with ones rational assessment of which course of
action is best. Hence, acting freely involves rational perceptions as well as rational
appetitions. It requires both knowledge of, or rational judgments about, the good, as well as
the tendency to act in accordance with these judgments. For Leibniz, the capacity for rational
judgments is called intellect, and the tendency to pursue what the intellect judges to be best
is called will. Non-human animals, because they do not possess intellects and wills, or the
requisite type of perceptions and appetitions, lack freedom. This also means, however, that
most human actions are not free, because we only sometimes reason about the best course of
action and act voluntarily, on the basis of our rational judgments. Leibniz in fact stresses that
in three quarters of their actions, human beings act just like animals, that is, without making
use of their rationality (see Principles of Nature and Grace, section 5, in Ariew and Garber,
1989).
In addition to rationality, Leibniz claims, free actions must be self-determined and contingent
(see e.g. Theodicy, section 288). An action is self-determinedor spontaneous, as Leibniz
often calls itwhen its source is in the agent, rather than in another agent or some other
external entity. While all actions of monads are spontaneous in a general sense since, as we
will see in section four, Leibniz denies all interaction among created substances, he may have
a more demanding notion of spontaneity in mind when he calls it a requirement for freedom.
After all, when an agent acts on the basis of her rational judgment, she is not even subject to
the kind of apparent influence of her body or of other creatures that is present, for instance,
when someone pinches her and she feels pain.

In order to be contingent, on the other hand, the action cannot be the result of compulsion or
necessitation. This, again, is generally true for all actions of monads because Leibniz holds
that all changes in the states of a creature are contingent. Yet, there may again be an
especially demanding sense in which free actions are contingent for Leibniz. He often says
that when a rational agent does something because she believes it to be best, the goodness she
perceives, or her motives for acting, merely incline her towards action without necessitating
action (see e.g. Huggard, p. 419; Fifth Letter to Clarke, sections 8-9; Ariew and Garber, p.
195; New Essays, p. 175). Hence, Leibniz may be attributing a particular kind of contingency
to free actions.

Even though Leibniz holds that free actions must be contingent, that is, that they cannot be
necessary, he grants that they can be determined. In fact, Leibniz vehemently rejects the
notion that a world with free agents must contain genuine indeterminacy. Hence, Leibniz is
what we today call a compatibilist about freedom and determinism (see Free Will). He
believes that all actions, whether they are free or not, are determined by the nature and the
prior states of the agent. What is special about free actions, then, is not that they are
undetermined, but rather that they are determined, among other things, by rational perceptions
of the good. We always do what we are most strongly inclined to do, for Leibniz, and if we
are most strongly inclined by our judgment about the best course of action, we pursue that
course of action freely. The ability to act contrary even to ones best reasons or motives,
Leibniz contends, is not required for freedom, nor would it be worth having. As Leibniz puts
it in the New Essays, the freedom to will contrary to all the impressions which may come
from the understanding would destroy true liberty, and reason with it, and would bring us
down below the beasts (p. 180). In fact, being determined by our rational understanding of
the good, as we are in our free actions, makes us godlike, because according to Leibniz, God
is similarly determined by what he judges to be best. Nothing could be more perfect and
more desirable than acting in this way.

3. The Mill Argument

In several of his writings, Leibniz argues that purely material things such as brains or
machines cannot possibly think or perceive. Hence, Leibniz contends that materialists like
Thomas Hobbes are wrong to think that they can explain mentality in terms of the brain. This
argument is without question among Leibnizs most influential contributions to the
philosophy of mind. It is relevant not only to the question whether human minds might be
purely material, but also to the question whether artificial intelligence is possible. Because
Leibnizs argument against perception in material objects often employs a thought experiment
involving a mill, interpreters refer to it as the mill argument. There is considerable
disagreement among recent scholars about the correct interpretation of this argument (see
References and Further Reading). The present section sketches one plausible way of
interpreting Leibnizs mill argument.

The most famous version of Leibnizs mill argument occurs in section 17 of the Monadology:

Moreover, we must confess that perception, and what depends on it, is inexplicable in terms
of mechanical reasons, that is, through shapes and motions. If we imagine that there is a
machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it
enlarged, keeping the same proportions, so that we could enter into it, as one enters into a
mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will only find parts that push one
another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception. And so, we should seek
perception in the simple substance and not in the composite or in the machine.

To understand this argument, it is important to recall that Leibniz, like many of his
contemporaries, views all material things as infinitely divisible. As already seen, he holds
that there are no smallest or most fundamental material elements, and every material thing, no
matter how small, has parts and is hence complex. Even if there were physical atoms
against which Leibniz thinks he has conclusive metaphysical argumentsthey would still
have to be extended, like all matter, and we would hence be able to distinguish between an
atoms left half and its right half. The only truly simple things that exist are monads, that is,
unextended, immaterial, mind-like things. Based on this understanding of material objects,
Leibniz argues in the mill passage that only immaterial entities are capable of perception
because it is impossible to explain perception mechanically, or in terms of material parts
pushing one another.

Unfortunately Leibniz does not say explicitly why exactly he thinks there cannot be a
mechanical explanation of perception. Yet it becomes clear in other passages that for Leibniz
perceiving has to take place in a simple thing. This assumption, in turn, straightforwardly
implies that matterwhich as seen is complexis incapable of perception. This, most likely,
is behind Leibnizs mill argument. Why does Leibniz claim that perception can only take
place in simple things? If he did not have good reasons for this claim, after all, it would not
constitute a convincing starting point for his mill argument.

Leibnizs reasoning appears to be the following. Material things, such as mirrors or paintings,
can represent complexity. When I stand in front of a mirror, for instance, the mirror
represents my body. This is an example of the representation of one complex material thing
in another complex material thing. Yet, Leibniz argues, we do not call such a representation
perception: the mirror does not perceive my body. The reason this representation falls
short of perception, Leibniz contends, is that it lacks the unity that is characteristic of
perceptions: the top part of the mirror represents the top part of my body, and so on. The
representation of my body in the mirror is merely a collection of smaller representations,
without any genuine unity. When another person perceives my body, on the other hand, her
representation of my body is a unified whole. No physical thing can do better than the mirror
in this respect: the only way material things can represent anything is through the arrangement
or properties of their parts. As a result, any such representation will be spread out over
multiple parts of the representing material object and hence lack genuine unity. It is arguably
for this reason that Leibniz defines perception as the passing state which involves and
represents a multitude in the unity or in the simple substance (Monadology, section 14).
Leibnizs mill argument, then, relies on a particular understanding of perception and of
material objects. Because all material objects are complex and because perceptions require
unity, material objects cannot possibly perceive. Any representation a machine, or a material
object, could produce would lack the unity required for perception. The mill example is
supposed to illustrate this: even an extremely small machine, if it is purely material, works
only in virtue of the arrangement of its parts. Hence, it is always possible, at least in
principle, to enlarge the machine. When we imagine the machine thus enlarged, that is, when
we imagine being able to distinguish the machines parts as we can distinguish the parts of a
mill, we will realize that the machine cannot possibly have genuine perceptions.

Yet the basic idea behind Leibnizs mill argument can be appealing even to those of us who
do not share Leibnizs assumptions about perception and material objects. In fact, it appears
to be a more general version of what is today called the hard problem of consciousness," that
is, the problem of explaining how something physical could explain, or give rise to,
consciousness. While Leibnizs mill argument is about perception generally, rather than
conscious perception in particular, the underlying structure of the argument appears to be
similar: mental states have characteristicssuch as their unity or their phenomenal
propertiesthat, it seems, cannot even in principle be explained physically. There is an
explanatory gap between the physical and the mental.

4. The Relation between Mind and Body

The mind-body problem is a central issue in the philosophy of mind. It is, roughly, the
problem of explaining how mind and body can causally interact. That they interact seems
exceedingly obvious: my mental states, such as for instance my desire for a cold drink, do
seem capable of producing changes in my body, such as the bodily motions required for
walking to the fridge and retrieving a bottle of water. Likewise, certain physical states seem
capable of producing changes in my mind: when I stub my toe on my way to the fridge, for
instance, this event in my body appears to cause me pain, which is a mental state. For
Descartes and his followers, it is notoriously difficult to explain how mind and body causally
interact. After all, Cartesians are substance dualists: they believe that mind and body are
substances of a radically different type (see Descartes: Mind-Body Distinction). How could a
mental state such as a desire cause a physical state such as a bodily motion, or vice versa, if
mind and body have absolutely nothing in common? This is the version of the mind-body
problem that Cartesians face.

For Leibniz, the mind-body problem does not arise in exactly the way it arises for Descartes
and his followers, because Leibniz is not a substance dualist. We have already seen that,
according to Leibniz, an animal or human being has a central monad, which constitutes its
soul, as well as subordinate monads that are everywhere in its body. In fact, Leibniz appears
to hold that the body just is the collection of these subordinate monads and their perceptions
(see e.g. Principles of Nature and Grace section 3), or that bodies result from monads (Ariew
and Garber, p. 179). After all, as already seen, he holds that purely material, extended things
would not only be incapable of perception, but would also not be real because of their infinite
divisibility. The only truly real things, for Leibniz, are monads, that is, immaterial and
indivisible substances. This means that Leibniz, unlike Descartes, does not believe that there
are two fundamentally different kinds of substances, namely physical and mental substances.
Instead, for Leibniz, all substances are of the same general type. As a result, the mind-body
problem may seem more tractable for Leibniz: if bodies have a semi-mental nature, there are
fewer obvious obstacles to claiming that bodies and minds can interact with one another.
Yet, for complicated reasons that are beyond the scope of this article (but see Leibniz:
Causation), Leibniz held that human minds and their bodiesas well as any created
substances, in factcannot causally interact. In this, he agrees with occasionalists such as
Nicolas Malebranche. Leibniz departs from occasionalists, however, in his positive account
of the relation between mental and corresponding bodily events. Occasionalists hold that God
needs to intervene in nature constantly to establish this correspondence. When I decide to
move my foot, for instance, God intervenes and moves my foot accordingly, occasioned by
my decision. Leibniz, however, thinks that such interventions would constitute perpetual
miracles and be unworthy of a God who always acts in the most perfect manner. God
arranged things so perfectly, Leibniz contends, that there is no need for these divine
interventions. Even though he endorses the traditional theological doctrine that God
continually conserves all creatures in existence and concurs with their actions (see Leibniz:
Causation), Leibniz stresses that all natural events in the created world are caused and made
intelligible by the natures of created things. In other words, Leibniz rejects the occasionalist
doctrine that God is the only active, efficient cause, and that the laws of nature that govern
natural events are merely Gods intentions to move his creatures around in a particular way.
Instead for Leibniz these laws, or Gods decrees about the ways in which created things
should behave, are written into the natures of these creatures. God not only decided how
creatures should act, but also gave them natures and natural powers from which these actions
follow. To understand the regularities and events in nature, we do not need to look beyond
the natures of creatures. This, Leibniz claims, is much more worthy of a perfect God than the
occasionalist world, in which natural events are not internally intelligible.

How, then, does Leibniz explain the correspondence between mental and bodily states if he
denies that there is genuine causal interaction among finite things and also denies that God
brings about the correspondence by constantly intervening? Consider again the example in
which I decide to get a drink from the fridge and my body executes that decision. It may
seem that unless there is a fairly direct link between my decision and the actioneither a link
supplied by Gods intervention, or by the power of my mind to cause bodily motionit
would be an enormous coincidence that my body carries out my decision. Yet, Leibniz thinks
there is a third option, which he calls pre-established harmony. On this view, God created
my body and my mind in such a way that they naturally, but without any direct causal links,
correspond to one another. God knew, before he created my body, that I would decide to get
a cold drink, and hence made my body in such a way that it will, in virtue of its own nature,
walk to the fridge and get a bottle of water right after my mind makes that decision.

In one text, Leibniz provides a helpful analogy for his doctrine of pre-established harmony.
Imagine two pendulum clocks that are in perfect agreement for a long period of time. There
are three ways to ensure this kind of correspondence between them: (a) establishing a causal
link, such as a connection between the pendulums of these clocks, (b) asking a person
constantly to synchronize the two clocks, and (c) designing and constructing these clocks so
perfectly that they will remain perfectly synchronized without any causal links or adjustments
(see Ariew and Garber, pp. 147-148). Option (c), Leibniz contends, is superior to the other
two options, and it is in this way that God ensures that the states of my mind correspond to the
states of my body, or in fact, that the perceptions of any created substance harmonize with the
perceptions of any other. The world is arranged and designed so perfectly that events in one
substance correspond to events in another substance even though they do not causally interact,
and even though God does not intervene to adjust one to the other. Because of his infinite
wisdom and foreknowledge, God was able to pre-establish this mutual correspondence or
harmony when he created the world, analogously to the way a skilled clockmaker can
construct two clocks that perfectly correspond to one another for a period of time.

5. References and Further Reading

a. Primary Sources in English Translation

Ariew, Roger and Daniel Garber, eds. Philosophical Essays. Indianapolis: Hackett,
1989.
o Contains translations of many of Leibnizs most important shorter writings
such as the Monadology, the Principles of Nature and Grace, the Discourse on
Metaphysics, and excerpts from Leibnizs correspondence, to name just a few.
Ariew, Roger, ed. Correspondence [between Leibniz and Clarke]. Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2000.
o A translation of Leibnizs correspondence with Samuel Clarke, which touches
on many important topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind.
Francks, Richard and Roger S. Woolhouse, eds. Leibniz's 'New System' and Associated
Contemporary Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
o Contains English translations of additional short texts.
Francks, Richard and Roger S. Woolhouse, eds. Philosophical Texts. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998.
o Contains English translations of additional short texts.
Huggard, E. M., ed. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man
and the Origin of Evil. La Salle: Open Court, 1985.
o Translation of the only philosophical monograph Leibniz published in his
lifetime, which contains many important discussions of free will.
Lodge, Paul, ed. The LeibnizDe Volder Correspondence: With Selections from the
Correspondence between Leibniz and Johann Bernoulli. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2013.
o An edition, with English translations, of Leibnizs correspondence with De
Volder, which is a very important source of information about Leibnizs
mature metaphysics.
Loemker, Leroy E., ed. Philosophical Papers and Letters. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970.
o Contains English translations of additional short texts.
Look, Brandon and Donald Rutherford, eds. The LeibnizDes Bosses Correspondence.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
o An edition, with English translations, of Leibnizs correspondence with Des
Bosses, which is another important source of information about Leibnizs
mature metaphysics.
Parkinson, George Henry Radcliffe and Mary Morris, eds. Philosophical Writings.
London: Everyman, 1973.
o Contains English translations of additional short texts.
Remnant, Peter and Jonathan Francis Bennett, eds. New Essays on Human
Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
o Translation of Leibnizs section-by-section response to Lockes Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, written in the form of a dialogue between
the two fictional characters Philalethes and Theophilus, who represent Lockes
and Leibnizs views, respectively.
Rescher, Nicholas, ed. G.W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991.
 o An edition, with English translation, of the Monadology, with commentary and
a useful collection of parallel passages from other Leibniz texts.
Strickland, Lloyd H., ed. The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations.
London: Continuum, 2006.
o Contains English translations of additional short texts.

b. Secondary Sources

Adams, Robert Merrihew. Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994.
o One of the most influential and rigorous works on Leibnizs metaphysics.
Borst, Clive. "Leibniz and the Compatibilist Account of Free Will." Studia Leibnitiana
24.1 (1992): 49-58.
o About Leibnizs views on free will.
Brandom, Robert. "Leibniz and Degrees of Perception." Journal of the History of
Philosophy 19 (1981): 447-79.
o About Leibnizs views on perception and perceptual distinctness.
Davidson, Jack. "Imitators of God: Leibniz on Human Freedom." Journal of the
History of Philosophy 36.3 (1998): 387-412.
o Another helpful article about Leibnizs views on free will and on the ways in
which human freedom resembles divine freedom.
Davidson, Jack. "Leibniz on Free Will." The Continuum Companion to Leibniz. Ed.
Brandon Look. London: Continuum, 2011. 208-222.
o Accessible general introduction to Leibnizs views on freedom of the will.
Duncan, Stewart. "Leibniz's Mill Argument Against Materialism." Philosophical
Quarterly 62.247 (2011): 250-72.
o Helpful discussion of Leibnizs mill argument.
Garber, Daniel. Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009.
o A thorough study of the development of Leibnizs metaphysical views.
Gennaro, Rocco J. "Leibniz on Consciousness and Self-Consciousness." New Essays
on the Rationalists. Eds. Rocco J. Gennaro and C. Huenemann. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999. 353-371.
o Discusses Leibnizs views on consciousness and highlights the advantages of
reading Leibniz as endorsing a higher-order thought theory of consciousness.
Jolley, Nicholas. Leibniz. London; New York: Routledge, 2005.
o Good general introduction to Leibnizs philosophy; includes chapters on the
mind and freedom.
Jorgensen, Larry M. "Leibniz on Memory and Consciousness." British Journal for the
History of Philosophy 19.5 (2011a): 887-916.
o Elaborates on Jorgensen (2009) and discusses the role of memory in Leibnizs
theory of consciousness.
Jorgensen, Larry M. "Mind the Gap: Reflection and Consciousness in Leibniz." Studia
Leibnitiana 43.2 (2011b): 179-95.
o About Leibnizs account of reflection and reasoning.
Jorgensen, Larry M. "The Principle of Continuity and Leibniz's Theory of
Consciousness." Journal of the History of Philosophy 47.2 (2009): 223-48.
o Argues against ascribing a higher-order theory of consciousness to Leibniz.
Kulstad, Mark. Leibniz on Apperception, Consciousness, and Reflection. Munich:
Philosophia, 1991.
 o Influential, meticulous study of Leibnizs views on consciousness.
Kulstad, Mark. "Leibniz, Animals, and Apperception." Studia Leibnitiana 13 (1981):
25-60.
o A shorter discussion of some of the issues in Kulstad (1991).
Lodge, Paul, and Marc E. Bobro. "Stepping Back Inside Leibniz's Mill." The Monist
81.4 (1998): 553-72.
o Discusses Leibnizs mill argument.
Lodge, Paul. "Leibniz's Mill Argument Against Mechanical Materialism Revisited."
Ergo (2014).
o Further discussion of Leibnizs mill argument.
McRae, Robert. Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1976.
o An important and still helpful, even if somewhat dated, study of Leibnizs
philosophy of mind.
Murray, Michael J. "Spontaneity and Freedom in Leibniz." Leibniz: Nature and
Freedom. Eds. Donald Rutherford and Jan A. Cover. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005. 194-216.
o Discusses Leibnizs views on free will and self-determination, or spontaneity.
Phemister, Pauline. "Leibniz, Freedom of Will and Rationality." Studia Leibnitiana
26.1 (1991): 25-39.
o Explores the connections between rationality and freedom in Leibniz.
Rozemond, Marleen. "Leibniz on the Union of Body and Soul." Archiv fr Geschichte
der Philosophie 79.2 (1997): 150-78.
o About the mind-body problem and pre-established harmony in Leibniz.
Rozemond, Marleen. "Mills Can't Think: Leibniz's Approach to the Mind-Body
Problem." Res Philosophica 91.1 (2014): 1-28.
o Another helpful discussion of the mill argument.
Savile, Anthony. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Leibniz and the Monadology.
New York: Routledge, 2000.
o Very accessible introduction to Leibnizs Monadology.
Simmons, Alison. "Changing the Cartesian Mind: Leibniz on Sensation,
Representation and Consciousness." The Philosophical Review 110.1 (2001): 31-75.
o Insightful discussion of the ways in which Leibnizs philosophy of mind
differs from the Cartesian view; also argues that Leibnizian consciousness
consists in higher-order perceptions.
Sotnak, Eric. "The Range of Leibnizian Compatibilism." New Essays on the
Rationalists. Eds. Rocco J. Gennaro and C. Huenemann. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999. 200-223.
o About Leibnizs theory of freedom.
Swoyer, Chris. "Leibnizian Expression." Journal of the History of Philosophy 33
(1995): 65-99.
o About Leibnizian perception.
Wilson, Margaret Dauler. "Confused Vs. Distinct Perception in Leibniz:
Consciousness, Representation, and God's Mind." Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on
Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. 336-352.
o About Leibnizian perception as well as perceptual distinctness.