Eric Nash, Texas A&M University

Second Response to Marshall Gillis: The Elimination of the Form of Rest Eric Nash, Texas A&M University

In his paper, “The Blending of Change and Rest”, Marshall Gilles argues that the Platonic forms of Change and Rest are capable of blending together. Further, they are able to blend in such a way that preserved their essential natures. This position has been rejected up until now in the literature because of a standard ‘unstoppable force meets unmovable object’ paradox — Change and Rest cannot mix together, because doing so makes them no longer ‘Change’ and ‘Rest’ respectively. Gilles claims, though, that there exists a kind of changes which an object of knowledge can undergo without its essential characteristics being altered, namely, Cambridge change. In this paper I will analyze the nature of Plato’s five major forms, explain Gille’s argument for blending, express my concern over the danger Gilles’s argument poses for eliminating the Form of Rest altogether, and then finally offer some possible remedies to this problem.

In the Sophist, Plato claims that there are five major forms: Being, Sameness, Difference, Change, and Rest. They are the most important of the Forms, because all forms ‘participate’ in them. For any thing to exist implies that it will participate in these five megista genê-ville. However, Change and Rest are unique in reference to the other three. For any form X, if X exists then it logically entails that it participates in Being (because it is rather than is not), Sameness (because it is like itself), and Difference (because it is not any other form). X does not have these properties because it is a part of X’s intrinsic characters, but because X, as we say, participates in the Forms from which these traits comes. For example, Sameness is different from Rest because both Forms exist, not because ‘difference’ is a part of Sameness’s makeup. While Change and Rest share in these three Forms, no other sensible particular shares in Change and Rest permanently or simultaneously. If it were possible for any one thing to simultaneously participate in Change and Rest then we come to the previously mentioned paradox. Meanwhile, the nature of reality allows for no sensible particular to permanently stay in states of either Change or Rest. Moreover, no Forms participate in Change or Rest at all, because “Forms…are purely intelligible entities” (Leah 2012); they are changeless causes. Consider the Form of Beauty, the Form structures all beautiful sensible particulars and so causes them to possess the attribute of beauty. If this form were to change,

then it no longer is the quintessential Beauty, and all instances of beauty in the world are lost. My argument relies heavily on this understanding of the Forms’ nature.

Now that we understand how Forms interact with one another, we can being to analyze Gilles’s argument. Gilles claims that a type of change, Cambridge change, can affect Forms while refraining from altering their essences. Cambridge change occurs when any predicate P about object O is true at one moment, but, due to the change of some other element E, P logically passes from true to not true. Gillis provides a nice example to clear this up: I may not know the Form of Justice at this point of my life, but if I ever come to learn about it, the predicate “is known by Eric Nash” can be added to the list of the Form’s properties and thereby change the Form itself. Then once I die and cease to know the Form of Justice, the predicate passes from true to not true, changing the Form of Justice once again. However, the essence of Justice has never been altered, and Justice can continue to manifest itself in the tangible world in the same way as before. Therefore, the blending of Change and Rest must be possible, because, while they are ‘at rest’ in their essential properties, they can still undergo a type of change — Cambridge change.

I argue, though, that this conclusion must be met with some hesitation. If Change and Rest are truly objects of knowledge, as Gilles and many others suggest, then it follows that they can indeed be know (thus opening the door for Cambridge change). However, as we observed earlier, Forms are changeless causes and, because of this, are able to structure things in the world after themselves. If this were not the case, then the Form ceases to exist and fails to produce instances of itself. Cambridge change is thought to offer a way sidestepping this problem, and indeed it does, but only most of the time. To Gilles’s credit, this works in all cases except one: the Form of Rest. Rest, by its very nature, must always be at rest. If it were ever to not be resting, then it ceases to be the quintessential Rest. Subsequently, every instance of resting, failing to have a Form to structure them, would be destroyed. The moment the Form of Rest comes to be known by an individual it will gain the predicate “known by so-and-so”, activating Cambridge change and causing it to not be at rest any longer — it is no longer Rest itself. However, Rest’s existence implies several things: it participates in Being, Sameness, and Difference. Its participation in Difference does not allow for Rest to yield to its cosmic opposite, Change, at any time. With this being said, Cambridge change mandates the obliteration the Change of Rest. My analysis does not completely negate Gilles’s argument, however. Rather, it requires for his argument needs to be refined in one of three possible ways.

The first option is that we commit ourselves to the elimination of the Form of Rest. This requires our devotion to a Heraclitean metaphysics of sorts. If Rest drops from existence because of its susceptibility to Change, then all things must be constantly changing. Change will take over the realm of sensible particulars making it impossible for anything to be in a state of resting. This move is not unfounded, and, in fact, I believe is quite acceptable. However, if this is not a feasible conclusion, we can add a footnote to Gilles’s argument that will make the destruction of the Form of Rest impossible: the Forms can never be truly know. This allows for Cambridge change to occur in the tangible world, but it cannot reach the realm of the Forms. In this way, the Form of Rest is protected from Cambridge change. This, though, has its price. Our second resolution implies that people can never truly know other important forms, such as the Form of Good. If these two options prove to be insufficient there is one last choice, which I believe to be the strongest and the most appealing: Cambridge change is not legitimate change. If anything, including the Form, undergoes Cambridge change, then it does not imply that it is not simultaneously resting. In her paper “Restless Forms and Changeless Causes”, Leigh asserts that Plato was aware of changes similar to Cambridge change, but rejects them as genuine change (Leigh 239). When we observe a thing moving from a state of rest to a state of change (i.e. experiencing true change), we see that its intrinsic properties are being transformed — not its relational properties. If I tossed my computer out the window and it shattered on the ground, it has faced real change: the screen is cracked, it is incapable of turning on, the keys are popped out of place, and so on. However, if I look at my computer and add the predicate “it is seen by me”, we intuit that it has not changed in a meaningful way. With this, I believe it is best to say that Cambridge change is at best nominal change, and thus does not serve as a legitimate conduit for the Form of Change. Cambridge change, then, cannot be capable of eliminating the Form of Rest.

Though Gilles provides a strong argument for the blending of the Forms Change and Rest via Cambridge change, I believe he has brought about an unintended consequence: the end of the Form of Rest. Out of the three solutions I have offered to this problem, it appears to me that denying Cambridge change the status of genuine change is the most compelling. Since it does not alter any properties that are actually a part of a given thing, it presents itself as a very weak form of change. So weak in fact, that it does not bring about instances of the Form of Change. However, if a supporter of Cambridge change is reluctant to give up their belief in its transformative powers, I have offered two other acceptable avenues that will prevent the destruction of the Form of Rest.

Gilles, Marshal. Wasting Away in Megista Genê-Villa: The Blending of Change and Rest, TAMU

IV-CUP, 2021.

Leigh, Fiona. Restless Forms and Changeless Causes, London: Aristotelian Society, 2012. pp.

239-259.

Plato “Sophist” The Complete Works of Plato, Translated by Nicholas P. White, Edited by John

M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. pp 236-293