The Physiology of the Rout Simile
Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi
In the Posterior Analytics ii. 19, Aristotle engages with two related
questions about the first principles of science: how we come to know them
and what is the state that knows them.1 The first problem is in fact an aporia
of Platonic origin: either we acquire the first principles from no pre-existing
knowledge, or we somehow have them in us even though we are unaware of
them. Both solutions are unpalatable for Aristotle. It would be strange for
our alleged innate knowledge of the highest principles to escape our notice.
But it would be equally implausible to think that knowledge of first principles
emerges from a state of ignorance, or from no state at all.2
Aristotle’s solution to the aporia consists in showing that a third position
is available. Knowledge of first principles is neither innate, nor does it come
from nowhere. It emerges from an inferior cognitive state: perception.
Thus the states in question [sc. the states grasping the first principles] neither inhere in us in a determinate form nor come about
from other states which are more cognitive; rather, they come
about from perception—as in a battle, when a rout has occurred,
first one makes a stand, then another does, and then another,
until a starting point is reached. And the soul is such as to be
capable of undergoing this.3
Perception is the starting point of our cognitive ascent to first principles. This
cognitive ascent involves memory and experience, as well as a specific kind of
1
APo. 99b15–19. On the importance of distinguishing these questions and their answers
see Barnes 1993, pp. 260 and 268.
2
APo. 99b25–35. Aristotle has already discussed a related aporia in APo. i.1–3, and its
Platonic antecedent can be found at Phaedo 73a and Meno 85c. In sketching a preliminary
reconstruction of this difficult passage I follow Barnes 1993, pp. 260–262 and Adamson
2010, pp. 1–7. The sketch leaves a number of issues unresolved.
3
οὔτε δὴ ἐνυπάρχουσιν ἀφωρισμέναι αἱ ἕξεις, οὔτ’ ἀπ’ ἄλλων ἕξεων γίνονται γνωστικωτέρων, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ αἰσθήσεως, οἷον ἐν μάχῃ τροπῆς γενομένης ἑνὸς στάντος ἕτερος ἔστη,
εἶθ’ἕτερος, ἕως ἐπὶ ἀρχὴν ἦλθεν. ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ὑπάρχει τοιαύτη οὖσα οἵα δύνασθαι πάσχειν τοῦτο. APo. 100a10–14. Translations of the APo. are loosely based on Barnes 1993. Here I
keep the mss. archē at 100a13, while Barnes emends with alkēn (see Barnes 1993, p. 265).
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reasoning: induction.4
This preliminary sketch of the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics is
uncontroversial. Pretty much all the details of Aristotle’s account of the route
to the first principles are however widely debated. It is hard to say whether
induction takes us all the way to the first principles, and it is difficult to
determine what role memory, experience and the intellect play in the ascent.5
The nature of the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle (if there is one)
concerning our route to the principles is unclear, and it is difficult to make
sense of the rout simile.6
My focus in this paper is restricted to the rout simile, and to the role it
plays in this chapter. The simile has been taken to elucidate both the workings
of induction, and also the nature and extent of the (dis)agreement between
Aristotle and Plato on how we become familiar with the first principles.7 I
argue that, properly understood, the simile does neither of these things. In the
first section, I suggest that the simile should be read against the background
of the physiological preconditions of knowledge discussed in the Physics vii. 3
and of the rout simile in the pseudo Aristotelian Problems 917a30–33. Once we
read it in this way, all the simile suggests is that the acquisition of knowledge
requires the coming to rest of the physiological changes involved in perceptual
activities. In the second section, I argue that once we understand the simile
correctly, we can see it as gesturing toward the physiological background of
perception of the Timaeus. Thus, the rout simile does help us to elucidate
Aristotle’s engagement with Plato’s philosophy of mind, but it does so in a
way that has so far been neglected in the interpretive literature.
References
Adamson, Peter (2010). “Posterior Analytics 2.19: a Dialogue with Plato?”
In: Aristotle and the Stoics Reading Plato. (Bulletin of the Institute of
Classical Studies Supplement 107). Ed. by Verity Harte et al. London: ICS,
pp. 81–109.
4
APo. 100a3–10, APo. 100a15–b5 and the parallel discussion at Met. 980b26–981a12.
See Barnes 1993 as an introduction too all these issues. On whether induction takes us
all the way to the first principles, see inter alia Modrak 1987, pp. 172–174, Bronstein 2012,
Charles 2000, pp. 266–269, Gasser-Wingate 2016. On the stages of the ascent see Yurdin
and Hasper 2014, Gregoric and Grgic 2006 and Salmieri 2014.
6
On the relationship between Aristotle and Plato see Adamson 2010, Charles 2010 and
Scott 1995, pp. 91 ff. On the rout simile see J. Lesher 2010 and J. H. Lesher 2011.
7
See e.g. Bronstein 2012, pp. 50, Frede 1996, pp. 170–171, Salmieri 2014, pp. 180, J.
Lesher 2010, J. H. Lesher 2011, Tuominen 2010, pp. 134 ff. on the first kind of interpretation,
Adamson 2010, pp. 13 ff. and Pseudo-Philoponus in APo. 436.23-437.2 on the second.
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2
Barnes, Jonathan (1993). Aristotle Posterior Analytics. Trans. by Jonathan
Barnes. 2nd Edition. Clarendon Press.
Bronstein, David (2012). “The Origin and Aim of Posterior Analytics II.19”.
In: Phronesis 57.1, pp. 29–62.
Charles, David (2000). Aristotle on Meaning and Essence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
— (2010). “The Paradox in the Meno and Aristotle’s Attempts to Resolve It”.
In: Definition in Greek Philosophy. Ed. by David Charles. Oxford: OUP.
Frede, Michael (1996). “Aristotle’s Rationalism”. In: Rationality in Greek
Thought. Ed. by Michael Frede and Gisela Striker. Oxford University
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Gasser-Wingate, Marc (2016). “Aristotle on Induction and First Principles”.
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Gregoric, Pavel and Filip Grgic (2006). “Aristotle’s Notion of Experience”. In:
Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 88.1, pp. 1–30.
Lesher, J. (2010). ““Just as in Battle”: The Simile of the Rout in Aristotle
Posterior Analytics II 19”. In: Ancient Philosophy 30.1, pp. 95–105.
Lesher, J. H. (2011). “A Note on the Simile of the Rout in the Posterior
Analytics II 19”. In: Ancient Philosophy 31.1, pp. 121–125.
Modrak, Deborah K. W. (1987). Aristotle: The Power of Perception. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Salmieri, Gregory (2014). “Aisthesis, Empeiria, and the Advent of Universals
in Posterior Analytics II.19”. In: Apeiron 43.2-3, pp. 155–186.
Scott, Dominic (1995). Recollection and Experience: Plato’s Theory of Learning and its Successors. Cambridge University Press.
Tuominen, Miira (2010). “Back to Posterior Analytics II 19: Aristotle on the
Knowledge of Principles”. In: Apeiron 43.2-3, pp. 115–144.
Yurdin, Joel and Pieter Sjoerd Hasper (2014). “Between Perception and
Scientific Knowledge: Aristotle’s Account of Experience”. In: Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy 47, pp. 119–150.
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