The Growing Argument

There are actually two Growing Arguments. Skeptics say entities cannot survive material change
Stoics say that the immaterial, peculiarly qualified individual does survive material change

The essential problem in Chrysippus' "Growing Argument" is whether an individual can survive (with its identity intact), when it suffers a loss (or a gain) of its material substance.

The Academic Skeptics argued that an individual cannot survive material change. When any material is subtracted or added, the entity ceases to exist and a new numerically distinct individual comes into existence.

The Stoics saw the identity of an individual as its immaterial bundle of properties or qualities that they called the "peculiarly qualified individual" or ἰδίος ποιὸν.

Following Aristotle, the Stoics called the material substance or substrate ὑποκείμενον (or "the underlying"). This material substrate is transformed when matter is lost or gained, but they said it is wrong to call such material changes "growth (αὐξήσεις) and decay (φθίσεις)." The Stoics suggested they should be called "generation (γενέσεις) and destruction (φθορὰς)." These terms were already present in Aristotle, who said that the form, as essence, is not generated. He said that generation and destruction are material changes that do not persist (as does the Stoic peculiarly qualified individual).

It is therefore obvious that the form (or whatever we should call the shape in the sensible thing) is not generated—generation does not apply to it—nor is the essence generated; for this is that which is induced in something else either by art or by nature or by potency. But we do cause a bronze sphere to be, for we produce it from bronze and a sphere; we induce the form into this particular matter, and the result is a bronze sphere...
For if we consider the matter carefully, we should not even say without qualification that a statue is generated from wood, or a house from bricks; because that from which a thing is generated should not persist, but be changed. This, then, is why we speak in this way.

(Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book VII, § vii & viii)

It is important to see that the Aristotelian view is very similar to the Stoic - that individuals are combinations of matter and form. At times Aristotle made the matter the principle of individuation, at other times he stressed the immaterial qualities or "affections," as did the Stoics, with their peculiarly qualified individual.

Is Aristotle here the source of the four Stoic genera or categories?

The term “substance” (οὐσία) is used, if not in more, at least in four principal cases; for both the essence (εἶναι), and the universal (καθόλου) and the genus (γένος) are held to be the substance of the particular (ἑκάστου), and fourthly the substrate (ὑποκείμενον). The substrate is that of which the rest are predicated, while it is not itself predicated of anything else. Hence we must first determine its nature, for the primary substrate (ὑποκείμενον) is considered to be in the truest sense substance.

Aristotle clearly sees a statue as both its form/shape and its matter/clay.
Both matter and form and their combination are said to be substance (οὐσία).
Now in one sense we call the matter (ὕλη ) the substrate; in another, the shape (μορφή); and in a third, the combination of the two. By matter I mean, for instance, bronze; by shape, the arrangement of the form (τὸ σχῆμα τῆς ἰδέας); and by the combination of the two, the concrete thing: the statue (ἀνδριάς). Thus if the form is prior to the matter and more truly existent, by the same argument it will also be prior to the combination.

(Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book VII, § iii)

The Skeptics attacked the Stoics, saying Stoics were making single things into dual beings, two objects in the same place at the same time, but indistinguishable.

The two objects are just Plato's body and his peculiarly qualified individual (ἰδίος ποιὸν),
Aristotle would say they are his matter and his form.
. . . since the duality which they say belongs to each body is differentiated in a way unrecognizable by sense-perception. For if a peculiarly qualified thing like Plato is a body, and Plato's substance is a body, and there is no apparent difference between these in shape, colour, size and appearance, but both have equal weight and the same outline, by what definition and mark shall we distinguish them and say that now we are apprehending Plato himself, now the substance of Plato? For if there is some difference, let it be stated and demonstrated

(Anonymous Academic treatise, Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 3008 in Stoic Ontology, The Hellenistic Philosophers, A. Long and D. Sedley, p.167)

The first century CE Skeptic Plutarch described the Growing Argument,

Epicharmus' argument was that the debtor's growth by material change made him a different person
(1) The argument about growth is an old one, for, as Chrysippus says, it is propounded by Epicharmus. Yet when the Academics hold that the puzzle is not altogether easy or straightforward, these people [sc. the Stoics] have laid many charges against them and denounced them as destroying our preconceptions and contravening our conceptions. Yet they themselves not only fail to save our conceptions but also pervert sense-perception.
(2) For the argument is a simple one and these people grant its premises:

For the Stoics,
the increase or decrease in material transforms only the bodily substrate, not the persisting qualities or affections of the unique individual
   a all particular substances are in flux and motion, releasing some things from themselves and receiving others which reach them from elsewhere;
   b the numbers or quantities which these are added to or subtracted from do not remain the same but become different as the aforementioned arrivals and departures cause the substance to be transformed;
   c the prevailing convention is wrong to call these processes or of growth and decay: rather they should be called generation and destruction, since they transform the thing from what it is into something else, whereas growing and diminishing are affections of a body which serves as substrate.

Plutarch's sarcasm is misplaced, but it is hard to disassociate material change from the growth of an invisible and intangible entity - the peculiar individual.
(3) When it is stated and proposed in some such way, what is the judgement of these champions of the evident, these yardsticks of our conceptions? That each of us is a pair of twins, two-natured and double — not in the way the poets think of the Molionidae [legendary Siamese twins], joined in some parts but separated in others, but two bodies sharing the same colour, the same shape, the same weight, and the same place, no man previously has seen them.

Substance is material. It is in flux but does not grow. The individual grows invisibly (affections, peculiar qualities, immaterial forms as mind and soul), yet remains the same person from birth to death
4) But these men alone have seen this combination, this duplicity, this ambiguity, that each of us is two substrates, the one substance, the other <a peculiarly qualified individual>; and that the one is always in flux and motion, neither growing nor diminishing nor remaining as it is at all, while the other remains and grows and diminishes and undergoes all the opposite affections to the first one — although it is its natural partner, combined and fused with it, and nowhere providing sense-perception with a grasp of the difference.
(5) . . . Yet this difference and distinction in us no one has marked off or discriminated, nor have we perceived that we are born double, always in flux with one part of ourselves, while remaining the same people from birth to death with the other.
(6) I am simplifying their account, since it is four substrates that they attribute to each of us; or rather, they make each of us four. But even the two are sufficient to expose the absurdity.

What the Stoics maintain is that each individual has a material part that changes in quantity, but does not constitute the real process of growth and decay of the persisting (subsisting) immaterial part that constitutes the unique individual's identity from birth to death
(7) If when we hear Pentheus in the tragedy say that he sees two suns and a double Thebes we say he is not seeing but misseeing, going crazy in his arithmetic, then when these people propose that, not one city, but all men, animals, trees, furniture, implements and clothes are double and two-natured, shall we not reject them as forcing us to misthink rather than to think?
(8) Here, actually, they can perhaps be excused for inventing different kinds of substrates, for there seems no other device available to people determined to save and protect the processes of growth.

(Plutarch, On common conceptions 1083A— 1084A in Stoic Ontology, The Hellenistic Philosophers, A. Long and D. Sedley, p.167)

Philo of Alexandria (c. 30 BCE.- 45 CE) is our principal source for Chrysippus' creation of Dion and Theon.

(1) Chrysippus, in his treatise on “increase,” makes the following marvellous statement Χρύσιππος γοῦν ὁ δοκιμώτατος τῶν παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς ἐν τοῖς Περὶ αὐξανομένου τερατεύεταί τι τοιοῦτον·

(2) Starting from the premise that there cannot be two individuals qualifying the same substance, προκατασκευάσας ὅτι “δύο ἰδίως ποιὰ ἐπὶ τῆς αὐτῆς οὐσίας ἀμήχανον συστῆναι,”

(3) he continues
“as an illustration, suppose that one person has all his members and that another has only one foot and let us call the first Dion and the defective one Theon and then suppose that Dion has one of his feet cut off.” φησίν· “ἔστω θεωρίας ἕνεκα τὸν μέν τινα ὁλόκληρον, τὸν δὲ χωρὶς ἐπινοεῖσθαι τοῦ ἑτέρου ποδός, καλεῖσθαι δὲ τὸν μὲν ὁλόκληρον Δίωνα, τὸν δὲ ἀτελῆ Θέωνα, κἄπειτα ἀποτέμνεσθαι Δίωνος τὸν ἕτερον τοῖν ποδοῖν.”

(4) Now if we ask which of the two has suffered destruction, he thinks that Theon is the more correct answer. ζητουμένου δή, πότερος ἔφθαρται, τὸν Θέωνα φάσκειν οἰκειότερον εἶναι.

(5) This savours more of paradox than of truth. For how can one say that Theon the unmutilated has been made away with, while Dion whose foot is amputated has suffered no destruction? τοῦτο δὲ παραδοξολογοῦντος μᾶλλόν ἐστιν ἢ ἀληθεύοντος. πῶς γὰρ ὁ μὲν οὐδὲν ἀκρωτηριασθεὶς μέρος, ὁ Θέων, ἀνήρπασται, ὁ δ᾿ ἀποκοπεὶς τὸν πόδα Δίων οὐχὶ διέφθαρται; “δεόντως” φησίν

6) Quite rightly,” [Chrysippus] replies, “for Dion who has had his foot amputated has passed over to the defective [incomplete] substance of Theon. Two individuals cannot qualify the same substratum and so Dion must remain and Theon has been destroyed.” “ἀναδεδράμηκε γὰρ ὁ ἐκτμηθεὶς τὸν πόδα Δίων ἐπὶ τὴν ἀτελῆ τοῦ Θέωνος οὐσίαν, καὶ δύο ἰδίως ποιὰ περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ὑποκείμενον οὐ δύνατ᾿ εἶναι. τοιγαροῦν τὸν μὲν Δίωνα μένειν ἀναγκαῖον, τὸν δὲ Θέωνα διεφθάρθαι.”

(Philo, On The Eternity of the World, § 48, Loeb Classical Library)
Compare Long and Sedley's translation here.

Information Philosophy Analysis

The Stoics and the Academic Skeptics appear to agree that two peculiarly qualified individuals cannot occupy, they cannot "qualify" the same substance (premise 2).
The Stoics also believed that a single peculiarly qualified individual can not occupy two substances. They believed that every individual being is unique, perhaps because their pneuma is unique. Surprisingly, this coincides with the evidence of modern biology, that there are information differences between every biological individual, which means that every cell is unique.
Stoics and Skeptics also agree that an increase or decrease in material substance means that an entity must cease to exist, based on the analogy with "numerically distinct" numbers. If we add or subtract 1 from the number 6, it becomes a different number, 7 or 5. It ceases to be 6.
For example, when we add some more clay to a lump of clay, Stoics believed that the original lump ceases to exist, replaced by a numerically distinct new lump. This is counterintuitive to modern ears. But modern metaphysicians describe such changes as existential, when they mistakenly assume that material constitution is identity.
The Stoics argued that this sort of material change should be called generation (γενέσεις) and destruction (φθορὰς), since they transform the thing from what it is into something else. This is the Heraclitean philosophy of Becoming, that all is in flux, you can't step into the same river twice. If everything is always changing its material, what is to constitute its Parmenidean Being, especially a human being?
The Skeptic version of the Growing Argument is that matter is the sole principle of individuation, so that a change of matter constitutes a change of identity.
But according to the Stoics, material change is not growing. Something that grows and diminishes must subsist. It must retain its identity over time. Otherwise we cannot say that "it" is growing.
For the Stoics, what comes into existence, grows, then diminishes and dies, is the peculiarly qualified individual (ἰδίος ποιὸν) that is coincident with a different amount of matter from time to time.
But material constitution is not identity, individuals are not their material substrate (ὑποκείμενον), but their unique qualities, which we can take to be Aristotle's immaterial form.
The Stoics have therefore rejected matter as the principle of individuation.
To promote the Stoic view of growing, Chrysippus' asks us to consider the case of Dion, and a second hypothetical individual Theon, who coincides with a part of Dion's material body, minus one foot.
Now let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Dion and Theon now occupy the same space and appear to share the same substance. They are coinciding objects.
By 1), one of these two must go because two "numerically distinct individuals" cannot occupy the same substance or substrate.
By 5), Dion can survive a change in material, so he must be the one who remains.
The Skeptics complained that it is Theon that should still exist, because nothing at all happened to him.
But Theon was an arbitrary undetached part of Dion, just an idea hypothesized to pick out a certain amount of Dion's material substance, with no pretense of it being a natural "proper part."
Chrysippus says Dion "has collapsed into the defective [ἀτελῆ means incomplete] substance of Theon." Theon was incomplete before the amputation of Dion's foot. Dion now coincides with exactly the same amount of substance (matter) as Theon, so they are no longer numerically distinct individuals on that account.
Chrysippus points out that the Academic Skeptic version of the Growing Argument is a variation of Epicharmus' old debtor's paradox, which the Stoic version solves by pointing to the immaterial peculiarly qualified individual as the one who survives the change in material, maintaining the debtor's identity and responsibility for the debt.
By analogy, it is Dion, not his alterable material constitution, that is the proper peculiarly qualified individual who survives.
Chrysippus rejects matter as the principle of individuation.
Information is a better principle of individuation. Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communication. Information is immaterial, the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine.
Immaterial information is perhaps as close as a physical or biological scientist can get to the idea of a soul or spirit that departs the body at death. When a living being dies, it is the maintenance of biological information that ceases. The matter remains.

References

Baker, L. R. (1997). "Why constitution is not identity." The Journal of Philosophy, 94(12), 599-621.
Bowin, J. (2003). "Chrysippus' Puzzle About Identity." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 24: 239-251
Burke, M. B. (1994). Dion and Theon: An essentialist solution to an ancient puzzle. The Journal of Philosophy, 91(3), 129-139.
Burke, M. B. (1996). Tibbles the cat: A Modern "Sophisma". Philosophical Studies, 84(1), 63-74.
Burke, M. B. (1997). Coinciding objects: reply to Lowe and Denkel. Analysis, 57(1), 11-18.
Burke, M. B. (2004). Dion, Theon, and the many-thinkers problem. Analysis, 64(3), 242-250.
Chisholm, R. M. (1973). Parts as essential to their wholes. The Review of Metaphysics, 581-603.
Johnston, M. (1992). "Constitution is not identity". Mind, 101(401), 89-105.
Long, A. and D. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers
Lowe, E. J. (1995). Coinciding objects: in defence of the 'standard account'. Analysis, 55(3), 171-178.
Noonan, H. W. (1993). "Constitution is identity." Mind, 102(405), 133-146.
Rea, M. C. (1995). The problem of material constitution.. The Philosophical Review, 104(4), 525-552.
Sedley, David. 1982. "The Stoic Criterion of Identity." Phronesis 27: 255-75.
Wiggins, D. (1968). On being in the same place at the same time. The Philosophical Review, 90-95.

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Plutarch

Moralia, Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions 1077 (D-E)

36. Furthermore, they can be heard and in many writings can be seen quarreling with the Academics and crying out that the latter confuse all things with their indistinguishable likenesses by insisting upon the existence of a single qualification in the case of two substances. Yet there is no human being who does not make this supposition and think that on the contrary it is amazing and paradoxical if in all of time there have not been two doves or two bees or two grains of wheat or the proverbial two figs indistinguishably like each other. What’s really at odds with the common conception are those assertions made by these Stoics and their fictions about a single substance’s having got two individual qualifications,c which is to say that one and the same substance with a single individual qualification takes on a second when it supervenes and continues to keep both of them alike. For, if two, there could also be three and four and five and more than could be told in a single substance—I mean not in different parts of it but all the countless qualifications alike in the whole of it. At any rate, Chrysippus asserts that Zeus, that is the universe, is like the human being and his providence is like its soul, that consequently, when the conflagration has taken place, Zeus, who alone of the gods is indestructible, withdraws to his providence, and then both, having come together, persist in the single substance of the ether. 36. Ἀκοῦσαι τοίνυν ἔστιν αὐτῶν καὶ γράμμασιν ἐντυχεῖν πολλοῖς πρὸς τοὺς Ἀκαδημαϊκοὺς διαφερομένων καὶ βοώντων ὡς πάντα πράγματα συγχέουσιταῖς ἀπαραλλαξίαις, ἐπὶ δυεῖν οὐσιῶν ἕνα ποιὸν εἶναι βιαζόμενοι. καίτοι τοῦτο μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις ἀνθρώπων οὐ διανοεῖται καὶ τοὐναντίον οἴεται θαυμαστὸν εἶναι καὶ παράδοξον εἰ μήτε φάττα φάττῃ μήτε μελίττῃ μέλιττα μήτε πυρῷ πυρὸς ἢ σύκῳ τὸ τοῦ λόγου σῦκον ἐν τῷ παντὶ χρόνῳ γέγονεν ἀπαράλλακτον. ἐκεῖνα δ᾿ ὄντως παρὰ τὴν ἔννοιάν ἐστιν, ἃ λέγουσιν οὗτοι καὶ πλάττουσιν, ἐπὶ μιᾶς οὐσίας δύ᾿ ἰδίως γενέσθαι ποιοὺς καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν οὐσίαν ἕνα ποιὸν ἰδίως ἔχουσαν ἐπιόντος ἑτέρου δέχεσθαι καὶ διαφυλάττειν ὁμοίως ἀμφοτέρους. εἰ γὰρ δύο, καὶ τρεῖς καὶ τέτταρες ἔσονται καὶ πέντε καὶ ὅσους οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι περὶ μίαν οὐσίαν· λέγω δ᾿ οὐκ ἐν μέρεσι διαφόροις ἀλλὰ πάντας ὁμοίως περὶ ὅλην τοὺς ἀπείρους. λέγει γοῦν Χρύσιππος ἐοικέναι τῷ μὲν ἀνθρώπῳ τὸν Δία καὶ τὸν κόσμον τῇ δὲ ψυχῇ τὴν πρόνοιαν· ὅταν οὖν ἡ ἐκπύρωσις γένηται, μόνον ἄφθαρτον ὄντα τὸν Δία τῶν θεῶν ἀναχωρεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν πρόνοιαν, εἶθ᾿ ὁμοῦ γενομένους ἐπὶ μιᾶς τῆς τοῦ αἰθέρος οὐσίας διατελεῖν ἀμφοτέρους.

φθορὰς (destruction) γενέσεις (generation) αὐξήσεις (growth) φθίσεις (decay)

1081? 41. It is at odds with the common conception to hold that there is future and past time and not present time but that, while recently and the other day subsist (ὑφίσταμαι ὑφεστάναι ὑφεστηκέναι ?), now is nothing at all. And yet this is what it comes to for the Stoics who do not admit a minimal time or wish the now to be indivisible but say that whatever one may think one has grasped and has in mind as present is in part future and in part past,d so that there is left and remains coincident with now no part of actual time if the time said to be actual be divided into parts that are future and parts that are past.e What happens, then, is one of two things: either in making the affirmation “time was and time will be” they deny the proposition “time is” or “there is time present,” which in part was and in part will be present, they also assert that what exists is in part future and in part past and what is now is in part before and in part after, so that now is what is not yet now and what is no longer now,a for what is past is no longer now and what is future is not yet now. In dividing assert that even and this year is in part last year and in part next year and what is simultaneous is in part before and in part after. For they make muddles no more reasonable than these when they identify “not yet” and “already” and “no longer” and “now” and “not now. All other men suppose and conceive and believe both “recently” and “soon” to be parts of time different from “now” and the latter to be after now but the former before now. Of these Stoics, however, Archedemus for one asserts that “now” is a kind of juncture and connexion of what is past and of what is coming on; and by this assertion he has unwittingly, as it seems, annihilated the whole of time, for, if now is not time but a limit of time and if every part of time is such as now is,c all time in its entirety obviously has no constituent part at all but is wholly resolved into limits and connexions and junctures. Chrysippus, on the other hand, wishing to treat the division with finesse says in his treatise on the Void and in some others that the part of time that is past and the part that is future subsist but do not exist and only what is present exists; but in the third and fourth and fifth books on Parts he affirms that of present time part is future and part has gone by. Consequently it turns out that he divides the existing part of time into parts that are non-existent and what does exist, or rather that he leaves absolutely nothing of time existing if what is present has no part that is not future or past.

1082 but it is much more shocking than this and further removed from the common conceptions for nothing to be overtaken by anything not even if a tortoise, as the saying goes,b should from behind be pursued by the swift steed of Adrastus. Yet it is necessary that this be the consequence if, while the moving bodies over the antecedent part, the distances which they traverse are, as these men maintain, divisible ad infinitum.d For, if the tortoise of the horse by only half a dozen rods, those who divide this distance ad infinitum and make each of the two things move in sequence over the antecedent and subsequent parts will never bring what is swiftest up to what is slowest, since the slower is always getting ahead by some distance which is divided into an infinite number of distances.e And the notion that water being poured out of a bowl or a cup will never be all poured out, how is this not at odds with the common conception or how not a consequence of their assertions?

1081 C-F 41. Παρὰ τὴν ἔννοιάν ἐστι χρόνον εἶναι μέλλοντα καὶ παρῳχημένον ἐνεστῶτα δὲ μὴ εἶναι χρόνον ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἄρτι καὶ τὸ πρῴην ὑφεστάναι τὸ δὲ νῦν ὅλως μηδὲν εἶναι. καὶ μὴν τοῦτο συμβαίνει τοῖς Στωικοῖς ἐλάχιστον χρόνον μὴ ἀπολείπουσι μηδὲ τὸ νῦν ἀμερὲς εἶναι βουλομένοις ἀλλὰ ὅ τι ἄν τις ὡς ἐνεστὼς οἴηται λαβὼν διανοεῖσθαι τούτου τὸ μὲν μέλλον τὸ δὲ παρῳχημένον εἶναι φάσκουσιν· ὥστε μηδὲν κατὰ τὸ νῦν ὑπομένειν μηδὲ λείπεσθαι μόριον χρόνου παρόντος ἂν ὃς1 λέγεται Dπαρεῖναι τούτου τὰ μὲν εἰς τὰ μέλλοντα τὰ δ᾿ εἰς τὰ παρῳχημένα διανέμηται. δυεῖν οὖν συμβαίνει θάτερον, ἢ τὸ “ἦν χρόνος καὶ ἔσται χρόνος” τιθέντας ἀναιρεῖν τὸ “ἔστι χρόνος” ἢ <τιθέντας τὸ>2 “ἔστι χρόνος ἐνεστηκώς,” οὗ τὸ μὲν ἐνειστήκει τὸ δ᾿ ἐνστήσεται, καὶ3 λέγειν ὅτι τοῦ ὑπάρχοντος τὸ μὲν μέλλον ἐστὶ τὸ δὲ παρῳχημένον καὶ τοῦ νῦν τὸ μὲν πρότερον τὸ δὲ ὕστερον, ὥστε νῦν εἶναι τὸ μηδέπω νῦν καὶ τὸ μηκέτι νῦν· οὐκέτι1 γὰρ νῦν τὸ παρῳχημένον καὶ οὐδέπω νῦν τὸ μέλλον. <ἀνάγκη δὲ οὕτω>2 διαιροῦσι λέγειν αὐτοῖς ὅτι καὶ το<ῦ τήμερον τὸ μὲν ἐχθὲς τὸ δ᾿ αὔριον>3 καὶ τοῦ τῆτες4 τὸ μὲν πέρυσι5 τὸ δ᾿ εἰς νέωτα καὶ τοῦ ἅμα Eτὸ μὲν πρότερον τὸ δὲ ὕστερον. οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐπιεικέστερα τούτων κυκῶσι, ταὐτὰ6 ποιοῦντες τὸ7 “μηδέπω” καὶ τὸ “ἤδη” καὶ τὸ “μηκέτι” καὶ τὸ “νῦν” καὶ τὸ “μὴ νῦν.” οἱ δ᾿ ἄλλοι πάντες ἄνθρωποι καὶ τὸ “ἄρτι” καὶ τὸ “μετὰ μικρὸν” ὡς ἕτερα τοῦ “νῦν” μόρια καὶ τὸ μὲν μετὰ τὸ νῦν τὸ δὲ πρὸ τοῦ νῦν τίθενται καὶ νοοῦσι καὶ νομίζουσι. τούτων <δ᾿>8 Ἀρχέδημος μὲν ἁρμήν9 τινα καὶ συμβολὴν εἶναι λέγων τοῦ παρῳχημένου καὶ τοῦ ἐπιφερομένου τὸ “νῦν” λέληθεν αὑτὸν ὡς ἔοικε τὸν πάντα χρόνον ἀναιρῶν. εἰ γὰρ τὸ νῦν οὐ10 χρόνος ἐστὶν ἀλλὰ πέρας χρόνου πᾶν δὲ μόριον χρόνου τοιοῦτον οἷον11 τὸ νῦν ἐστιν, οὐδὲν φαίνεται μέρος ἔχων Fὁ σύμπας χρόνος ἀλλ᾿ εἰς πέρατα διόλου καὶ συμβολὰς καὶ ἁρμὰς12 ἀναλυόμενος. Χρύσιππος δὲ βουλόμενος φιλοτεχνεῖν περὶ τὴν διαίρεσιν ἐν μὲν τῷ περὶ τοῦ Κενοῦ καὶ ἄλλοις τισὶ τὸ μὲν παρῳχημένον τοῦ χρόνου καὶ τὸ μέλλον οὐχ ὑπάρχειν ἀλλὰ ὑφεστηκέναι φησὶ μόνον δὲ ὑπάρχειν τὸ ἐνεστηκός· ἐν δὲ τῷ τρίτῳ καὶ τετάρτῳ καὶ πέμπτῳ περὶ τῶν Μερῶν τίθησι τοῦ ἐνεστηκότος χρόνου τὸ μὲν μέλλον 1082εἶναι τὸ δὲ παρεληλυθός. ὥστε συμβαίνει τὸ ὑπάρχον αὐτῷ τοῦ χρόνου διαιρεῖν εἰς τὰ μὴ ὑπάρχοντα τό θ᾿ ὑπάρχον1 μᾶλλον δὲ ὅλως τοῦ χρόνου μηδὲν ἀπολείπειν2 ὑπάρχον, εἰ τὸ ἐνεστηκὸς οὐδὲν ἔχει μέρος ὃ μὴ μέλλον ἐστὶν ἢ παρῳχημένον. 42. Ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ χρόνου νόησις αὐτοῖς οἷον ὕδατος περίδραξις, ὅσῳ μᾶλλον πιέζεται διαρρέοντος καὶ διολισθαίνοντος,3 τὰ δὲ τῶν πράξεων καὶ κινήσεων τὴν πᾶσαν ἔχει σύγχυσιν τῆς ἐναργείας.4 ἀνάγκη γάρ, εἰ τοῦ νῦν τὸ μὲν εἰς τὸ παρῳχημένον τὸ δ᾿ εἰς τὸ μέλλον διαιρεῖται, καὶ τοῦ κινουμένου 1083A-D 44. Παρίημι δὲ πολλὰς ἀτοπίας αὐτῶν τῶν παρὰ τὴν ἔννοιαν ἐφαπτόμενος. ὁ τοίνυν περὶ αὐξήσεως λόγος ἐστὶ μὲν ἀρχαῖος. ἠρώτηται γάρ, ὥς φησι Χρύσιππος, ὑπ᾿ Ἐπιχάρμου· τῶν δ᾿ ἐν Ἀκαδημείᾳ3 οἰομένων μὴ πάνυ ῥᾴδιον μηδ᾿ αὐτόθεν ἕτοιμον εἶναι τὴν ἀπορίαν πολλὰ κατῃτιάσανθ᾿ <οὗτοι καὶ> κατεβόησαν ὡς τὰς προλήψεις ἀναιρούντων Bκαὶ παρὰ τὰς ἐννοίας <φιλοσοφούντων· αὐτοὶ δ᾿ οὐ μόνον οὐδὲ τὰς ἐννοίας> φυλάττουσιν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν προσδιαστρέφουσιν. ὁ μὲν γὰρ λόγος ἁπλοῦς ἐστι καὶ τὰ λήμματα συγχωροῦσιν οὗτοι· τὰς ἐν1 μέρει πάσας οὐσίας ῥεῖν καὶ φέρεσθαι, τὰ2 μὲν ἐξ αὑτῶν μεθιείσας τὰ δέ ποθεν ἐπιόντα προσδεχομένας, οἷς δὲ πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισιν ἀριθμοῖς ἢ πλήθεσι ταὐτὰ μὴ διαμένειν ἀλλὰ ἕτερα γίγνεσθαι, ταῖς εἰρημέναις προσόδοις <καὶ ἀφόδοις> ἐξαλλαγὴν τῆς οὐσίας λαμβανούσης· αὐξήσεις δὲ καὶ φθίσεις οὐ κατὰ δίκην ὑπὸ συνηθείας ἐκνενικῆσθαι τὰς μεταβολὰς ταύτας λέγεσθαι, γενέσεις [δὲ]6 καὶ φθορὰς μᾶλλον αὐτὰς ὀνομάζεσθαι προσῆκον ὅτι τοῦ καθεστῶτος Cεἰς ἕτερον ἐκβιβάζουσι τὸ δ᾿ αὔξεσθαι καὶ τὸ μειοῦσθαι πάθη σώματός ἐστιν ὑποκειμένου καὶ διαμένοντος. οὕτω δέ πως τούτων λεγομένων καὶ τιθεμένων, τί ἀξιοῦσιν οἱ πρόδικοι τῆς ἐναργείας8 οὗτοι καὶ κανόνες τῶν ἐννοιῶν; ἕκαστον ἡμῶν δίδυμον εἶναι καὶ διφυῆ καὶ διττόν—οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ ποιηταὶ τοὺς Μολιονίδας οἴονται, τοῖς μὲν9 ἡνωμένους μέρεσι τοῖς δ᾿ ἀποκρινομένους, ἀλλὰ δύο σώματα ταὐτὸν ἔχοντα χρῶμα ταὐτὸν δὲ σχῆμα ταὐτὸν δὲ βάρος καὶ τόπον <τὸν αὐτὸν ὅμως δὲ διπλᾶ καίπερ>1 ὑπὸ μηδενὸς ἀνθρώπων ὁρώμενα πρότερον· ἀλλὰ οὗτοι μόνοι2 εἶδον τὴν σύνθεσιν ταύτην καὶ διπλόην καὶ ἀμφιβολίαν, ὡς δύο ἡμῶν ἕκαστός Dἐστιν ὑποκείμενα, τὸ μὲν οὐσία τὸ δὲ <ποιότης>, καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀεὶ ῥεῖ καὶ φέρεται, μήτ᾿ αὐξόμενον μήτε μειούμενον μήθ᾿ ὅλως οἷόν ἐστι διαμένον, τὸ δὲ διαμένει καὶ αὐξάνεται καὶ μειοῦται καὶ πάντα πάσχει τἀναντία θατέρῳ, συμπεφυκὸς καὶ συνηρμοσμένον καὶ συγκεχυμένον καὶ τῆς διαφορᾶς τῇ αἰσθήσει μηδαμοῦ παρέχον ἅψασθαι.

44. I pass over many of the Stoic absurdities and hold to those that are at odds with the common conception. Well then, the argument about growth is certainly ancient, for, as Chrysippus says, it was propounded by Epicharmus; and yet the members of the Academy, because they think that the question is not a very easy one and not to be disposed of out of hand, have been severely accused decried on the ground that they annihilate the preconceptions and are at odds with the common conceptions observed but even sense-perception is distorted to boot. For the argument is simple, and the Stoics admit the premises: that all particular substances are in flux and motion, sending off from themselves some parts and receiving others that come to them from elsewhere, that the numbers or amounts which such parts join and leave do not remain the same but become different, the substance undergoing transformation with the aforesaid accessions , and that by customary usage it has become the fashion for these changes to be incorrectly called cases of growth and decay, although the appropriate names for them are rather generation and destruction because they make a thing pass out of its existing state into another, whereas growth and diminution are modifications of a body that persists and is their substrate. Something like this being the position taken (by the Academics) and the way in which it is stated, what, then, do the Stoics maintain,a these advocates of clear apprehension and standards of the common conceptions? That each of us is a pair of twins and biform and double—not as the poets think the Molionidae are, unified in some parts but separated in others, but two bodies with colour the same and shape the same and weight the same and place discerned by no human being before; but these men alone caught sight of this combination and duplication and ambiguity, that each of us is two subjects, the one substance and the other , the former being always in flux and motion, neither growing nor diminishing nor remaining of any character at all, and the latter persisting and growing and diminishing and being affected in all respects contrary to the other,c though coalescent with it and conjoined and commingled and nowhere affording sensation a perception of the difference. 1083E-F, 1084 we did not perceive either that we had come to be double and are ever in flux in one part but in the other remain the same from birth to death. I am simplifying the theory, since they postulate four subjects in the case of each one or rather make each of us fourc; but even the two suffice to show the absurdity. If, in fact, when we hear Pentheus in the tragedy stating that two suns he sees and double Thebes we say that he is not seeing but, being deranged and out of his wits, is seeing amiss, shall we not dismiss these Stoics as forcing us into misconception rather than conception with their supposition that not just a single city but all human beings and all animals and trees and furniture and instruments and clothes are double and biform? Well, in this case perhaps it is excusable for them to fabricate diverse kinds of subjects, for no other contrivance presents itself to their ambition to save and maintain the phenomena of growth. 1083E-F, 1084 καὶ <δια>φορὰν οὐδεὶς διεῖλεν οὐδὲ διέστησεν, οὐδὲ ἡμεῖς ᾐσθόμεθα διττοὶ γεγονότες καὶ τῷ μὲν ἀεὶ ῥέοντες μέρει τῷ δ᾿ ἀπὸ γενέσεως ἄχρι τελευτῆς οἱ αὐτοὶ διαμένοντες. ἁπλούστερον δὲ ποιοῦμαι τὸν λόγον, ἐπεὶ τέσσαρά γε ποιοῦσιν ὑποκείμενα περὶ ἕκαστον, μᾶλλον δὲ τέσσαρα4 ἕκαστον ἡμῶν· ἀρκεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ δύο πρὸς τὴν ἀτοπίαν. εἴ γε τοῦ μὲν Πενθέως ἀκούοντες ἐν τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ λέγοντος ὡς δύο μὲν ἡλίους ὁρᾷ διττὰς δὲ Θήβας οὐχ ὁρᾶν αὐτὸν ἀλλὰ παρορᾶν λέγομεν, ἐκτρεπόμενον καὶ παρακινοῦντα τοῖς λογισμοῖς, τούτους δ᾿ οὐ μίαν πόλιν ἀλλὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους καὶ ζῷα καὶ δένδρα πάντα καὶ σκεύη καὶ ὄργανα καὶ ἱμάτια διττὰ καὶ διφυῆ τιθεμένους οὐ χαίρειν ἐῶμεν, ὡς παρανοεῖν ἡμᾶς μᾶλλον ἢ νοεῖν ἀναγκάζοντας; ἐνταῦθα μὲν οὖν ἴσως αὐτοῖς συγγνωστὰ6 πλάττουσιν ἑτέρας φύσεις ὑποκειμένων· (subjects?) ἄλλη γὰρ οὐδεμία φαίνεται μηχανὴ φιλοτιμουμένοις σῷσαι καὶ διαφυλάξαι τὰς αὐξήσεις.

Aristotle

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