I
Analogy, in its broadest sense, comprehends any
mode
of reasoning that depends on the suggestion or recog-
nition of a relationship of similarity between two ob-
jects or sets of objects. It includes not only
four-term
proportional relationships of the type A:B::C:D (for
which
the Greek term is
ἀναλογία),
but also both
explicit and implicit comparisons, for example the use
of models
(παραδείγματα)
and of images
(εἰκόνεσ).
In
early Greek thought analogies played a fundamental
role in the
expression of cosmological doctrines, in the
development of natural
science, and in ethical and
political arguments.
The three most important types of images used in
cosmological theories are
(1) political and social, (2)
vitalist, and (3) technological, in which,
roughly speak-
ing, the cosmos is conceived as
a state, as a living being,
and as an artifact respectively.
1. Political and Social Images.
The use of political
and social concepts is widespread in
pre-Socratic
cosmology. The idea of cosmic order as a balance of
power
between equal opposed forces goes back to
Anaximander, who describes the
relation between cer-
tain cosmic factors in
legal terms: “They pay the pen-
alty
and recompense to one another for their injustice
according to the
assessment of time.” Heraclitus, on
the other hand, stresses the
constant war and strife
between opposites: “One must realize
that war is com-
mon and justice is strife and
everything happens
through strife and necessity” (frag. 80). But
both
Parmenides in the Way of Seeming and
Empedocles
in his poem On Nature revert to the idea
of a cosmic
balance of power. In Empedocles, for example, Love
and
Strife are equals: they gain the upper hand in the
world in turn, and these
alternations are governed by
a “broad oath,” that is,
by some sort of contract be-
tween them.
Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia use a third
type of political model,
ascribing supreme power to
a single cosmic principle, and Plato similarly
attributes
supreme power to Reason which governs and arranges
all
things for the best. Superficially this last group of
images resembles the
traditional descriptions of Zeus
as supreme god; but there is this
fundamental differ-
ence, that the
philosophers ascribe supreme power not
to a capricious deity, but to the
principle of order and
rationality itself, to Mind or Reason or, in the
case of
Diogenes, to Air, thought of as the seat of intelligence.
These authoritarian images too, like the egalitarian
ones of Anaximander
and Empedocles, serve to express
the idea of cosmic order, although they do
so from
a different point of view and with different associations.
All these philosophers describe the cosmos in terms
of a concrete political
or social situation, whether of
a balance of power and equality of rights,
or of constant
war and aggression, or of benevolent, authoritarian
rule. Plato's antidemocratic, authoritarian political
inclinations are
echoed in his descriptions of Reason
as a supreme, benevolent cosmic ruler,
but the evi-
dence concerning earlier
philosophers is too scanty to
allow us to determine how closely their
cosmological
images tallied with their particular political
ideologies.
However, there are two ways in which their images
may be
related to their historical and social back-
ground.
First, the development of the Greek city-state from
about the seventh
century B.C. was accompanied by
an increasing political awareness and a new
conception
of political rights. In particular the framing of consti-
tutions and the codification of laws
led to a much less
arbitrary administration of justice than had been
the
case in earlier periods. These changes had their coun-
terparts in the political images used
by the cosmolo-
gists; varied as those
images are, they have in common
the notion that cosmological changes are
governed by
rules that are independent of the caprice of individuals.
The development in the attitude towards justice in the
city-state is
reflected in the development of Greek
cosmology itself, since it was
largely by means of the
ideas of law and justice that the pre-Socratic
thinkers
expressed the notion that the changes affecting the
primary
substances in the world are orderly and regu-
lated by immutable principles.
Secondly, the very variety of images and of the
cosmological doctrines
themselves is significant. As in
the political sphere the rise of the
city-state is accom-
panied by a
proliferation of constitutional forms rang-
ing
from extreme democracy to tyranny, the merits
of each of which were much
debated, so similarly in
the field of speculative thought the philosophers
felt
free to reject earlier ideas and to attempt to resolve
each
problem for themselves, and each new theory as
it was advanced was
discussed and criticized openly.
It is difficult to decide how far any of the pre-
Socratics recognized an element of transference in
applying
political and social conceptions to the cosmos.
No philosopher before Plato
explicitly refers to his
cosmological images as images
(εἰκόνεσ),
and yet it is
unlikely that any of them simply failed to differentiate
at all between the realm of society and that of nature,
the relations
between which had become, by the end
of the fifth century at least, the
subject of heated
controversy. Heraclitus, for instance, tacitly distin-
guishes between human laws and the
divine law, while
saying that the former depend on the latter, in frag.
114. Evidently he did not simply confuse human soci-
ety and cosmic order. Yet law and justice applied to
the cosmos were no mere figures of speech, for order
in the human sphere
was regularly conceived as part
of the wider cosmic
order and as somehow derived
from it.
2. Vitalist Images.
Most of the earlier pre-Socratic
philosophers imagined that the
primary stuff out of
which things are made or from which they
originate
is not merely like something that is
alive, but is indeed
instinct with life. This is
true of all three Milesian
philosophers and of Heraclitus; when he
describes the
world-order as an “ever-living” fire in
frag. 30, “ever-
living” is not simply a poetical equivalent for
“ever-
lasting,”
for he held that fire is indeed the substance
of which our own souls
consist. Later the Atomists too
seem to have believed that the mass of
atoms from
which worlds originate is instinct with life in the sense
that it is permeated by soul-atoms. Although Aristotle
ridiculed the belief
that soul is intermingled in the
whole universe, he himself held that the
heavenly
bodies are alive, and indeed some of his general physi-
cal theories, for example the doctrine of
potentiality
and actuality, are much influenced by ideas which
apply
primarily to the sphere of living things.
These and other vitalist beliefs affected the develop-
ment of Greek cosmology in three main ways.
First,
the earliest philosophers were “hylozoists”;
they as-
sumed that the primary substance, being
alive, is in
motion. The question of the origin or cause of move-
ment only came to be recognized as a
problem after
Parmenides had denied the possibility of change.
Secondly, vitalist notions are naturally very impor-
tant in accounts of how the world developed from an
original,
undifferentiated state. Anaximander, for ex-
ample, pictured the world evolving from a seed that
separated off
from the Boundless, and some of the
Pythagoreans too thought that the One
from which
the cosmos developed was composed of seed.
Thirdly, the structure of the cosmos was sometimes
compared with that of man
and vice versa. The idea
that the world is a living creature may underlie
the
comparison that Anaximenes drew between the role
of air in the
world and that of breath in man. But two
of the Hippocratic treatises put
forward much more
elaborate analogies between the microcosm and the
macrocosm. In De victu man's body is said to be
a
copy of the world-whole, the stomach being compared
with the sea and
so on. And De hebdomadibus suggests
detailed
correspondences both between the substances
in the body and those in the
universe—where the bones
correspond to the stony core of the
earth, for example—
and between the various parts of the body
and different
geographical areas—where the Thracian Bosphorus is
said to correspond to the feet, the Peloponnese to the
head,
and so on. While Plato proposed no detailed
analogy between the anatomy of
man and the structure
of the universe, he stated unequivocally his
conviction
that “this world is in truth a living creature,
endowed
with soul and reason” (
Timaeus
30b), and according
to the
Philebus (29b ff.) both
our body and our soul
are derived from the body and the soul of the world-
whole respectively.
3. Technological Images.
Several of the pre-
Socratics use
the metaphor of steering in their cos-
mologies, but the first to employ a wide range of
technological
images is Empedocles, and then both
Plato and Aristotle use them
extensively in two con-
texts, especially, (1)
to describe the role of a moving
or efficient cause, and (2) to express the
idea of intelli-
gent design in the cosmos.
In Empedocles' system everything is composed of
the four
“roots,” earth, water, air, and fire, together
with
Love and Strife, and in describing how complex
substances and the organs in
the body come to be he
assigns to Love the role of craftsman, the four
elements
being the material on which it works. It would be
anachronistic to attribute a clear distinction between
“material” and “efficient” causes to
Empedocles; but
it is in the descriptions of the craftsmanlike
activity
of Love that he comes closest to treating it as a purely
efficient cause. Plato's Timaeus is the first Greek
text
to describe the formation of the world as a whole as
the work of
a Craftsman. In Plato the Demiurge takes
over already existing matter and
imposes order on its
disorderly movements, and his account of the
details
of creation is full of images drawn from carpentry,
weaving,
modelling, metallurgy, and agricultural tech-
nology. Aristotle's unmoved mover, unlike Plato's
Craftsman, is only
a final, not an efficient cause; but
Aristotle too believes that final
causes are at work in
natural processes, and he uses comparisons drawn
from
the arts and crafts extensively to illustrate this. Despite
their
unconcealed contempt for the life led by merely
human artisans, both Plato
and Aristotle found techno-
logical
imagery indispensable for expressing their belief
in the rational design of
the universe.
