The Socratic Turn. Dustin Sebell

with ongoing vacillation or wavering on his part. In the absence of a necessary reason for it, that fact alone is neutral as to whether despair or hope of progressing in natural science is the appropriate response. And as much as he may have vacillated or wavered in regard to the results or findings of natural science, the young Socrates still supposed that what was disclosed by “this (sort of) examination” (96c2, c5) or “this way of proceeding” or “method” (97b5–6) was truly knowledge. For this reason, Socrates’ “sufficient proof” of his incapacity for natural science consists in a demonstration that he was so blinded by “examining” matters in this way that he “unlearned” “what [he] clearly knew,” at least in his opinion and in the opinion of “the others”—but not of “everybody” (contrast 96c8)—“before” (96c3–7).

      The character of “what [he] clearly knew before” or “what [he] supposed [he] knew before this” (96c6–7), when he was a young natural scientist, becomes clearer from the sequel. For before being blinded Socrates supposed he knew “both about many other things and about through what a human being grows” (96c7–8). That is to say, he supposed he knew “through what” (dia ti) a human being grows, and he supposed he knew the same thing about many other things as well; namely, “through what” they grow or come to be. And Socrates was not alone in supposing he knew such things. “The others” (96c4) engaged in natural science, such as those who said that the organization of animals was due to the hot and the cold undergoing some putrefaction (96b3), were also of the opinion that they possessed this knowledge (cf. 99b4–c6, 96a5–7, 99b4–c6). It was, then, this examination or the pursuit of this knowledge that blinded Socrates. And it was accordingly this knowledge, which he supposed he possessed “before this,” that he unlearned on account of the blindness brought on by his further pursuit of it.¹¹ In keeping with this, the young Socrates did indeed learn something from this experience. He learned that he did not in the last analysis truly possess the sort of knowledge, knowledge of “through what” things come to be, he formerly supposed he possessed.¹² But the unlearning of false things is a type of learning.

      Before being interrupted by Cebes (96e5), Socrates is able to make two statements about the sort of knowledge he formerly supposed he possessed. In both of these statements Socrates gives some account of what, in his youth, he supposed constituted sufficient or genuine knowledge of “through what” things come to be. He does not do so in a general way, however. Rather, he takes up five things or processes in particular—one in his first statement (96c8–d6) and four in his second (96d8–e4)—and he presents what he formerly supposed he knew about them. In this way, Socrates leaves it up to his listeners to gather what he supposed he knew about coming to be as such from what he supposed he knew about the specific examples he permits himself to mention. It is imperative for this reason that we remain attentive to the contribution that the young Socrates’ account of these things or processes is meant to make to our understanding of what he supposed he knew, but did not, about coming to be in general.

      The Complex Relation Between Science and Common Sense

      Socrates’ first statement (96c8–d7) is devoted to spelling out what, in his youth, he supposed he knew about “through what” a human being grows. This knowledge, which he later unlearned, was preceded by another sort of knowledge. In fact, the account he goes on to supply of human growth (96c8–d6), an account that was perfectly acceptable to the young Socrates and also “to the others” engaged in natural science (96c4), evidently had as its presupposition or starting-point an acceptance of what is clear “to everyone” already (96c8–9). The account of human growth supplied by the natural scientists is presented here as an explanation of what is clear “to everyone” (cf. 97c7, 96a8–9) even prior to a scientific account of it. A human being grows “through” eating and drinking (96c8–9). It is this fact, if it is a fact, which does not need science to become manifest to “everyone,” that the scientific account is primarily intended to explain. In other words, the natural scientists supplement or undergird the prescientific awareness of things—of, in this case, the fact that a human being grows “through” eating and drinking (cf. 96a8–9, 97c7)—with an account of the causes by virtue of which what “everyone” is already, prescientifically aware of, necessarily occurs.

      A Scientific Account

      The young Socrates explained the fact, of which “everyone” is already aware, that a human being grows “through” eating and drinking as follows. When from out of the food that a human being eats flesh is added to his flesh, bone to his bone, and in this way “by the same account” the “fitting” thing is added to each of his other parts as well, then what was formerly a little heap (bulk) becomes a lot, and so a little human being becomes big (96c9–d5). At the outset, to repeat, “everyone” is aware of the fact that a human being grows “through” eating and drinking. And yet the young Socrates along with the other natural scientists felt a need to explain this, to begin with, by having recourse not merely to “eating” by itself but to the very food a human being eats (96c9–d1). There is a reason for this. In tracing human growth to a mere process or happening, the prescientific view fails to specify or make explicit that from or out of which (96c9) the increased heap or bulk that belongs to the fully grown human being came to be. As a result, it remains open to—at a minimum, it has not eliminated—the possibility that something, the increased heap, came to be out of nothing at all. But this possibility is incompatible with the basic requirement or premise of science (philosophy), recognized as such by all of the first philosophers, that nothing can come to be without a cause (Aristotle Physics 187a27–29, 32–35, On Generation and Corruption 317b29–31).¹³ In order to protect this premise, and science along with it, the young Socrates was forced to begin by making explicit what the prescientific view of human growth had allowed to remain mysterious, that is, that from which the increased heap comes to be. Still, the young Socrates’ recourse to “food,” as that out of which the increased heap comes to be, does not yet serve to make his account of human growth an unimpeachably scientific one. As a matter of fact, precisely because it has recourse to “food” as that from which the bigger human being comes to be the account must grapple again with the same old difficulty. For how exactly does one being, that is, a bigger human being, come to be out of another being, that is, food?

      Had the young Socrates come to a stop before the prescientific awareness of things, he would have been compelled to recognize that the bigger human being and the food are or are genuine wholes (cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 1020b6–8, 1022a33–35). And that recognition would have compelled him to concede, in turn, that nothing remains or persists unchanged in the course of human growth. At the same time that the food, in perishing, perishes into the bigger human being, the bigger human being, in coming to be, comes to be out of the food. The very being from which, according to this account, the bigger human being comes to be, therefore perishes or ceases to be altogether. However, if something of the first being out of which the subsequent being comes to be does not somehow remain or persist unchanged within that (subsequent being) which has come to be, then the latter could perhaps have come to be out of nothing. That which is, the food, in perishing, could have perished without qualification (into nothing), and that which is not yet, the bigger human being, in coming to be, could have come to be without qualification (out of nothing).

      In an effort to avoid making a concession that would ultimately threaten science or its basic premise or requirement, the young Socrates refused to come to a stop before the prescientific awareness of things. He reduced both the food and the bigger human being to their materials or elements, “flesh” and “bone” and the other body parts, instead (96c9–d1, 98c6–7). And in so doing he refused to recognize what “everyone” is otherwise aware of: that the human being and the food are or are genuine wholes.¹⁴ By reducing in this way all the beings subject to the change in question to their common materials or elements, the young Socrates was able to preclude anything from coming to be or perishing without qualification. Insofar as the materials or elements at least neither come into being nor perish without qualification, they may thereby serve, since they are fixed themselves, to set fixed limits on the quality and the degree of the changes to which the perishable beings are subject.

      With this step, Socrates