First thoughts on relativity in the Peri Ideon
After seeing me talk about relatives (ta pros ti) in Aristotle’s Categories 7, James Warren suggested that I look again at the so-called ‘relativity argument’ in Alexander’s testimony on the lost treatise Peri Ideon. Many of you will know the argument from Owen’s classic 1957 paper A Proof in the Peri Ideon and the industrial-scale debate it generated. But here, I’m just going to offer one preliminary idea.
Alexander (In Met. 82, 11-83,16) reports Aristotle’s (type of) argument that reconstructs a Platonic argument for Forms. Most doubt Alexander quotes the Peri Ideon verbatim, but scholars take Alexander to be a good witness to Aristotle’s argument. But I wonder whether Alexander (and others) have misunderstood Aristotle’s intentions with the argument, even if Alexander’s report is accurate.