men + optative + de + indicative

Greek Learning Greek
1

At the very end of the Posterior Analytics (following a sentence I asked about earlier), Aristotle has this:

. . .
νοῦς ἂν εἴη ἐπιστήμης ἀρχή.
καὶ
ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ τῆς ἀρχῆς εἴη ἄν,
ἡ δὲ πᾶσα ὁμοίως ἔχει πρὸς τὸ πᾶν πρᾶγμα.

and
(a) the ἀρχὴ will be of the ἀρχὴ (whatever that means!), and
(b) the whole similiarly holds in relation to the whole πρᾶγμα (whatever that means!).

Grammatically, what is going on with a μὲν + optative (εἴη ἄν) followed by a δὲ plus indicative (ἔχει)?

Wouldn’t a μὲν-δὲ pair normally have the same mood in both clauses?

Or do the two moods tell us not to treat the μὲν-δὲ as a pair, and to join the first clause with the optative one just before the καὶ?

Commentators have struggled to make good sense of the sentence.

2

Hi, a few points to note here:

A μέν … δέ pair need not have the same mood or construction in both clauses. The particles simply bring the two clauses into a certain relation, but each can have its own construction. To take just one example, look at the change of moods in the clauses with μέν and δέ in Plato’s Euthyphro 3d–e: no need for the two protases to keep the same mood; instead, each has the construction appropriate for its combination of protasis and apodosis:

εἰ > μὲν > οὖν, ὃ νυνδὴ ἔλεγον, > μέλλοιέν > μου καταγελᾶν ὥσπερ σὺ φῂς σαυτοῦ, οὐδὲν ἂν εἴη ἀηδὲς παίζοντας καὶ γελῶντας ἐν τῷ δικαστηρίῳ διαγαγεῖν· εἰ > δὲ > > σπουδάσονται> , τοῦτ᾽ ἤδη ὅπῃ ἀποβήσεται ἄδηλον πλὴν ὑμῖν τοῖς μάντεσιν.

On the sentence from Aristotle, I don’t see anything too unusual there. Aristotle is clearly showing off a little with a grand flourish concluding his study: look at how he rhetorically sets off pairs of the same words:

Καὶ ἡ μὲν > ἀρχὴ > τῆς > ἀρχῆς > εἴη ἄν, ἡ δὲ > πᾶσα > ὁμοίως ἔχει πρὸς τὸ > ἅπαν > πρᾶγμα.

I won’t enter the minefield of interpreting what’s going on here, however the Greek seems (perhaps deceptively?) straightforward. It just gets confusing because of the rhetorical flourish.

The final para runs (I’ll break it into three parts, and bold two clauses):

Ἐπεὶ δὲ τῶν περὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἕξεων, αἷς ἀληθεύομεν, αἱ μὲν ἀεὶ ἀληθεῖς εἰσίν, αἱ δὲ ἐπιδέχονται τὸ ψεῦδος, οἷον δόξα καὶ λογισμός, ἀληθῆ δ᾿ ἀεὶ ἐπιστήμη καὶ νοῦς, καὶ οὐδὲν ἐπιστήμης ἀκριβέστερον ἄλλο γένος ἢ νοῦς, αἱ δ᾿ ἀρχαὶ τῶν ἀποδείξεων γνωριμώτεραι, ἐπιστήμη δ᾿ ἅπασα μετὰ λόγου ἐστί, τῶν ἀρχῶν ἐπιστήμη μὲν οὐκ ἂν εἴη, ἐπεὶ δ᾿ οὐδὲν ἀληθέστερον ἐνδέχεται εἶναι ἐπιστήμης ἢ νοῦν, > νοῦς ἂν εἴη τῶν ἀρχῶν> ,

ἔκ τε τούτων σκοποῦσι καὶ ὅτι ἀποδείξεως ἀρχὴ οὐκ ἀπόδειξις, ὥστ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ἐπιστήμης ἐπιστήμη. Εἰ οὖν μηδὲν ἄλλο παρ᾿ ἐπιστήμην γένος ἔχομεν ἀληθές, > νοῦς ἂν εἴη ἐπιστήμης ἀρχή> .

Καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ τῆς ἀρχῆς εἴη ἄν, ἡ δὲ πᾶσα ὁμοίως ἔχει πρὸς τὸ ἅπαν πρᾶγμα.

Look at how Aristotle has used ἀρχή in two different ways set off against νοῦς.

  • In the first one, he’s saying νοῦς would be of αἱ ἀρχαί (objective genitive).


  • In the second, he says νοῦς itself would be ἀρχή (of ἐπιστήμη).

Mix those two together, and you get:

ἐπιστήμης ἀρχὴ [= νοῦς, according to the second cl. in bold] ἂν εἴη τῶν ἀρχῶν [from the first cl. in bold].

Putting the objective genitive in the singular to round out the flourish and you get the first part of the final sentence:

Καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ [in the sense of the second cl. in bold] τῆς ἀρχῆς [in the sense of the first cl. in bold] εἴη ἄν [less usual positioning of the verb with particle in the sentence, but this would be, I guess, to rhetorically bring together the two forms of ἀρχή at the beginning].

The second part of the final sentence doesn’t need to be in the same mood as it’s not following from the reasoning earlier in the paragraph (he’s not talking about νοῦς anymore, but about ἐπιστήμη).

In other words, νοῦς (of αἱ ἀρχαί) is ἀρχή of ἐπιστήμη, and ἐπιστήμη stands in the same way to τὸ ἅπαν πρᾶγμα as νοῦς to αἱ ἀρχαί. This sentence summarises the chain from the ἀρχή to ἐπιστήμη of τὸ ἅπαν πρᾶγμα in a grand conclusion.

I haven’t read any commentary on this particular part, it’s just how the Greek seems to read (to me).

Cheers, Chad

3

Here’s how I read the bit that Chad quotes anyway (I haven’t read any Aristotle or much grammar, so I could be easily mislead, but this is what I get from reading through the above bit a few times):

Since the ἕξεις of the διάνοια, by which we discover truth, are some always true, while others admit the lie, such as δόξα and λογισμός, while ἐπιστήμη and νοῦς are always true, and there is no type more accurate than ἐπιστήμη other than νοῦς, and the causes of demonstrations are more knowable, but all ἐπιστήμη comes after reason, there would be no ἐπιστήμη of causes, and since nothing is admitted to be more true than ἐπιστήμη other than νοῦς, there would be a νοῦς of causes.

And further, out of this they investigate also that the cause of demonstration is not demonstration, so neither is [the cause] of ἐπιστήμη ἐπιστήμη. So if we have no other type of truth besides ἐπιστήμη [other than νοῦς], νοῦς would be the cause of ἐπιστήμη.

And the cause would be of the cause, while the whole has the same relationship to the entire matter.

He’s getting a little mystical/triumphant in his conclusion, it seems to me, and making his statement as universal as possible. νοῦς is the specific ἀρχή while επιστήμη is the whole, and he seems to be calling νοῦς a generator, while ἐπιστήμη is a relation.

Anyway, that’s how I read it.

4

The background here is that Aristotle is echoing an argument he has been making all through the Posterior Analytics and that he makes elsewhere: The knowledge called epistēmē is the result of a deductive demonstration; so the starting points (archai) for that demonstration cannot themselves be epistēmē. That would produce an infinite regress. The deduction needs to start with some other sort of knowledge. The only other option is nous.

Chad, that makes sense about the optative followed by indicative. Thanks.

I don’t yet see the difference between saying nous is the archē and nous is of the archē. When making the point elsewhere (NE 6.6, Post An A23, Post An A33), Aristotle seems to use the two without distinction. I’ll need to figure that out.

Do you guys take πᾶσα in the final clause to be the entire archē or the entire epistēmē? Grammatically, it could be either (both feminine), right? Archē is closer but commentators do typically presume epistēmē. Why?

5

Not to hijack the thread (too much anyway) but can I start Aristotle with Posterior Analytics, or would there be a better place to start? I’m interested in seeing the iceberg buried beneath this paragraph.

6

I think the Nicomachean Ethics is a much nicer introduction to Aristotle than the the Posterior Analytics!

7

Hi mccaskey, you’re right, πᾶσα could grammatically agree with ἀρχή. Its use in a δέ clause (after ἡ ἀρχή in the μέν clause), together with a shift in mood, suggested to me (on a first read) a change in topic, picking up ἐπιστήμη from the previous sentence.

However, as I noted above, Aristotle is expressing this rhetorically, and so multiple readings are available; it would come down to interpretation, and I wouldn’t be confident enough to interpret this—having read several commentators’ books on the An. Post. as well as the work itself, I have a red flag go up in my mind whenever I think I intuitively understand a sentence…

Joel, you could technically start with Aristotle anywhere: his works all fit together, and so it may not matter whether you start the jigsaw puzzle at the top-left or bottom-right. That said, the An. Post. has been arranged (even if by later editors) as an ‘upper-level course’ in the organon curriculum, and there’s important stuff in the ‘lower-level courses’ that are assumed as known in the An. Post.. Put very very simply:

  • Freshers start with learning about terms on their own (Categories).


  • Second-years move on to propositions formed by combining terms (On interpretation).


  • After this, there are courses on combining propositions to form syllogisms (An. Pr.), Aristotelian dialectic (Topics), and then


  • An. Post. at the end, which talks about how the types of demonstrations discussed in An. Pr. figure in a broader system of scientific knowledge about a particular field (where you also need to think about definitions, demonstration chains, etc. to form a complete system).

There’s a whole layer of epistemology in An. Post.: Aristotle describes different levels of knowledge that ratchet up as one builds a system of scientific knowledge in a field. In a way he does it in reverse order, working back from the demonstrations to the ἀρχαί (like going backwards in Euclid’s works from the theorems to the definitions, axioms etc.): hence the discussion of νοῦς of the ἀρχαί right at the end of the work, rather than the beginning.

Cheers, Chad

8

I agree Nicomachean Ethics is a much more accessible place to start. Look especially at book 6, on the intellectual virtues, if you want background to the material covered in the Posterior Analytics.