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<title>Horses in Philosophy</title>
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<h1><u>Horses in Philosophy</u></h1>
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<h2>Horses in Antiquity</h2>
<h3>Parmenides</h3>
<p>The first word of Parmenides' "On Truth" is "horses" ("hippoi"), as Parmenides narrates being drawn in a chariot to the goddess. This early example is just one of many to come of horses being integral to the philosopher's pursuit of wisdom and truth.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161004032925/http://philoctetes.free.fr/parmenidesunicode.htm">(link)</a></p>
<h3>Xenophanes</h3>
<p>Xenophanes is famous for, among other less important things, saying that if horses could draw, they would draw their gods as horses. As with Parmenides, where we find contemplation of ultimate reality, horses are not far away.</p>
<h3>Plato</h3>
<img src="academy.jpg" height=300>
<p>Horses and horsemanship are a common theme in Plato's dialogues as an example of an art and its object - no doubt his example of choice because of the special status of horses in the pursuit of truth. In fact, horses are mentioned in <b>17 out of 25</b> works by Plato, or <b>68%</b>. That's a number.</p>
<p>Socrates uses this example in the <i>Apology</i>, drawing a parallel between himself as an improver of men and the trainer of horses as an improver of horses:</p>
<p class="bq">I met a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him: "Callias," I said, "if your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding someone to put over them; we should hire a trainer of horses or a farmer probably who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them?</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">Would you say that this also holds true in the case of horses? Does one man do them harm and all the world good? Is not the exact opposite of this true? One man is able to do them good, or at least not many; - the trainer of horses, that is to say, does them good, and others who have to do with them rather injure them? Is not that true, Meletus, of horses, or any other animals?</p>
<p>In the same work Socrates appeals to the absurdity of not believing in horses to underscore the absurdity of the charges against him:</p>
<p class="bq">Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? or in flute-playing, and not in flute-players? ...You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses.</p>
<p>In the Athenian court system, the plaintiff and defendant each propose penalties, and the jury decides between the two choices. It is likely that Socrates would not have been put to death had he simply picked a fine or exile. But instead, he picked this:
<p class="bq">What would be a reward suitable to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires leisure that he may instruct you? There can be no more fitting reward than maintenance in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward which he deserves far more than the citizen who has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by two horses or by many. For I am in want, and he has enough; and he only gives you the appearance of happiness, and I give you the reality. And if I am to estimate the penalty justly, I say that maintenance in the Prytaneum is the just return.</p>
<p>Of course, it should not be surprising that Socrates was put to death for esteeming his work as greater than the horseman's, because the object of the horseman's art is the horse, while the object of Socrates' art is only man. But I am sure many horses shed a tear when Socrates died.</p>
<p>The theme of horses and horsemanship is not limited to the <i>Apology</i>. It can be found in <i>Euthyphro</i> as an example Socrates uses to undermine one of Euthyphro's definitions of piety:
<p class="bq"><b>Euth.</b> Piety or holiness, Socrates, appears to me to be that part of justice which attends to the gods, as there is the other part of justice which attends to men.
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> That is good, Euthyphro; yet still there is a little point about which I should like to have further information, What is the meaning of "attention"? For attention can hardly be used in the same sense when applied to the gods as when applied to other things. For instance, horses are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship. Is it not so?
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> And is not attention always designed for the good or benefit of that to which the attention is given? As in the case of horses, you may observe that when attended to by the horseman's art they are benefited and improved, are they not?</p>
<p>Yet again, horses and gods tread nearly to each other.</p>
<p><button onClick="javascript:toggle('moreplato')">More horses in Plato</button></p>
<div id="moreplato" class="expand">
<p>There are many references to horses in Plato which are obviously tangential to his main point, as they appear as merely one item in a longer list of examples. These have been generally excluded from this record. However, many remaining references privilege the mention of horses or concord with the above examples in pointing to the importance of horses specifically as objects of art and horsemanship as that noble art - that art so noble that Socrates was put to death for deigning to esteem his word its equal. He was not far off, though, since the comparison is made a few times in the <i>Republic</i>:</p>
<p class="bq">And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds would greatly deteriorate?</p>
<p class="bq">Certainly.</p>
<p class="bq">And the same of horses and animals in general?</p>
<p class="bq">Undoubtedly. </p>
<p class="bq">Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!</p>
<p>Truly, what consummate skill would be needed to be the horseman's equal! Again while discussing the art of the just man:</p>
<p class="bq">But ought the just to injure any one at all?</p>
<p class="bq">Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies.</p>
<p class="bq">When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated?</p>
<p class="bq">The latter.</p>
<p class="bq">Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?</p>
<p class="bq">Yes, of horses.</p>
<p class="bq">And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?</p>
<p class="bq">Of course.</p>
<p class="bq">And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?</p>
<p class="bq">Certainly.</p>
<p class="bq">And that human virtue is justice?</p>
<p class="bq">To be sure.</p>
<p class="bq">Then men who are injured are of necessity made unjust?</p>
<p class="bq">That is the result.</p>
<p class="bq">But can the musician by his art make men unmusical?</p>
<p class="bq">Certainly not.</p>
<p class="bq">Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen?</p>
<p class="bq">Impossible.</p>
<p class="bq">And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking general can the good by virtue make them bad?</p>
<p class="bq">Assuredly not.</p>
<p class="bq">Any more than heat can produce cold?</p>
<p class="bq">It cannot.</p>
<p class="bq">Or drought moisture?</p>
<p class="bq">Clearly not.</p>
<p class="bq">Nor can the good harm any one?</p>
<p class="bq">Impossible.</p>
<p class="bq">And the just is the good?</p>
<p class="bq">Certainly.</p>
<p class="bq">Then to injure a friend or any one else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust?</p>
<p>And again:</p>
<p class="bq">Then medicine does not consider the interest of medicine, but the interest of the body?</p>
<p class="bq">True, he said.</p>
<p class="bq">Nor does the art of horsemanship consider the interests of the art of horsemanship, but the interests of the horse; neither do any other arts care for themselves, for they have no needs; they care only for that which is the subject of their art?</p>
<p>The concern of the horseman comes up in the <i>Laches</i> as well:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> And when he considers whether he shall set a bridle on a horse and at what time, he is thinking of the horse and not of the bridle?</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Nic.</b> True.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> And in a word, when he considers anything for the sake of another thing, he thinks of the end and not of the means?</p>
<p>And in the <i>Ion</i>:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> Why, yes, Ion, because you may possibly have a knowledge of the art of the general as well as of the rhapsode; and you may also have a knowledge of horsemanship as well as of the lyre: and then you would know when horses were well or ill managed. But suppose I were to ask you: By the help of which art, Ion, do you know whether horses are well managed, by your skill as a horseman or as a performer on the lyre- what would you answer?</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Ion.</b> I should reply, by my skill as a horseman.</p>
<p>In this example we might infer that Plato intends for us to draw a parallel between knowing of horses through the art of horsemanship and knowing the good through the art of philosophy. Undoubtedly this is related to the earlier developments mentioned above, in which the contemplation of horses is linked to the contemplation of the good.</p>
<p>In the <i>Statesman</i>, the statesman is compared to the keeper of a whole herd of horses:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Str.</b> But the statesman is not a tender of individuals-not like the driver or groom of a single ox or horse; he is rather to be compared with the keeper of a drove of horses or oxen.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Str.</b> There were many arts of shepherding, and one of them was the political, which had the charge of one particular herd?</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Y. Soc.</b> Yes.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Str.</b> And this the argument defined to be the art of rearing, not horses or other brutes, but the art of rearing man collectively?</p>
<p>And in the <i>Theaetetus</i>, we find Socrates compared to the horseman:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Theod.</b> Invite Socrates to an argument-invite horsemen to the open plain; do but ask him, and he will answer.</p>
<p>So much for the themes of horsemanship as an art <i><abbr title="French for 'having to do with Excel documents'">par excellence</abbr></i> in Plato.</p>
<p>Horses appear in a variety of other places in Plato. The frame story of the <i>Republic</i> involves a horse-race:</p>
<p class="bq">Adeimantus added: Has no one told you of the torch-race on horseback in honour of the goddess which will take place in the evening?</p>
<p class="bq">With horses! I replied: That is a novelty. Will horsemen carry torches and pass them one to another during the race?</p>
<p>In the same work, we find that the just man in inadequate to the job of the horseman:</p>
<p class="bq">Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp-player, as in playing the harp the harp-player is certainly a better partner than the just man?</p>
<p class="bq">In a money partnership.</p>
<p class="bq">Yes, Polemarchus, but surely not in the use of money; for you do not want a just man to be your counsellor the purchase or sale of a horse; a man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?</p>
<p>Another indication of the superiority of the horseman's art, and the object thereof. Truly, nothing can compare to the horse:</p>
<p class="bq">I will proceed by asking a question: Would you not say that a horse has some end?</p>
<p class="bq">I should.</p>
<p class="bq">And the end or use of a horse or of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?</p>
<p>Nor to its spirit:</p>
<p class="bq">And is he likely to be brave who has no spirit, whether horse or dog or any other animal? Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?</p>
<p>Hence why Socrates suggests that the children of the rulers must be put onto horses, that they might learn their spirit:</p>
<p class="bq">Then against such chances the children must be at once furnished with wings, in order that in the hour of need they may fly away and escape.</p>
<p class="bq">What do you mean? he said.</p>
<p class="bq">I mean that we must mount them on horses in their earliest youth, and when they have learnt to ride, take them on horseback to see war: the horses must be spirited and warlike, but the most tractable and yet the swiftest that can be had. In this way they will get an excellent view of what is hereafter to be their own business; and if there is danger they have only to follow their elder leaders and escape.</p>
<p>In the <i>Laws</i> we find Socrates also comparing the work of horses as having compare in the ruling of the state, which speaks highly of what is required of the man of the art whose object is the majestic horse:</p>
<p class="bq">On the other hand, the conflux of several populations might be more disposed to listen to new laws; but then, to make them combine and pull together, as they say of horses, is a most difficult task, and the work of years. And yet there is nothing which tends more to the improvement of mankind than legislation and colonization.</p>
<p>In addition to being found among their gods and their rulers, horses are an integral part of what Plato considers to be the best kind of hunting:</p>
<p class="bq">Thus, only the best kind of hunting is allowed at all-that of quadrupeds, which is carried on with horses and dogs and men's own persons, and they get the victory over the animals by running them down and striking them and hurling at them, those who have a care of godlike manhood taking them with their own hands.</p>
<p>Note that the "godlike" thing to do is to kill animals with your bare hands. Horses, keeping up their connection with the gods, fight entirely with their bare hoofs.</p>
<p>In the <i>Phaedo</i>, we find the horse listed as an example of the beautiful:</p>
<p class="bq">And what would you say of the many beautiful-whether men or horses or garments or any other things which may be called equal or beautiful-are they all unchanging and the same always, or quite the reverse? May they not rather be described as almost always changing and hardly ever the same either with themselves or with one another?</p>
<p>And again later, the horse is a measure of greatness:</p>
<p class="bq">Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great man standing by a little one I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more than one, because two is twice one.</p>
<p>In the <i>Cratylus</i> we find this discussion of what it is to be a horse:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> Well, now, let me take an instance;- suppose that I call a man a horse or a horse a man, you mean to say that a man will be rightly called a horse by me individually, and rightly called a man by the rest of the world; and a horse again would be rightly called a man by me and a horse by the world:- that is your meaning?
<p>But in the end, the best way to communicate what a horse really is is participation in what it is to be a horse:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> Very good; but then how do the primary names which precede analysis show the natures of things, as far as they can be shown; which they must do, if they are to be real names? And here I will ask you a question: Suppose that we had no voice or tongue, and wanted to communicate with one another, should we not, like the deaf and dumb, make signs with the hands and head and the rest of the body?
<p class="bq"><b>Her.</b> There would be no choice, Socrates.
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> We should imitate the nature of the thing; the elevation of our hands to heaven would mean lightness and upwardness; heaviness and downwardness would be expressed by letting them drop to the ground; if we were describing the running of a horse, or any other animal, we should make our bodies and their gestures as like as we could to them.
<p>In the <i>Phaedrus</i>, Socrates compares the soul to a chariot pulled by two horses:
<p class="bq">Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite-a pair of winged horses and a charioteer...</p>
<p class="bq">As I said at the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul into three-two horses and a charioteer; and one of the horses was good and the other bad: the division may remain, but I have not yet explained in what the goodness or badness of either consists, and to that I will proceed. The right-hand horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.</p>
<p>Continuing the theme of horses, good, and evil, Socrates uses horses in a later analogy as well:
<p class="bq"><b>Phaedr.</b> And yet, Socrates, I have heard that he who would be an orator has nothing to do with true justice, but only with that which is likely to be approved by the many who sit in judgment; nor with the truly good or honourable, but only with opinion about them, and that from opinion comes persuasion, and not from the truth.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> The words of the wise are not to be set aside; for there is probably something in them; and therefore the meaning of this saying is not hastily to be dismissed.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Phaedr.</b> Very true.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> Let us put the matter thus:-Suppose that I persuaded you to buy a horse and go to the wars. Neither of us knew what a horse was like, but I knew that you believed a horse to be of tame animals the one which has the longest ears.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Phaedr.</b> That would be ridiculous.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> There is something more ridiculous coming:-Suppose, further, that in sober earnest I, having persuaded you of this, went and composed a speech in honour of an ass, whom I entitled a horse beginning: "A noble animal and a most useful possession, especially in war, and you may get on his back and fight, and he will carry baggage or anything."</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Phaedr.</b> How ridiculous!</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> Ridiculous! Yes; but is not even a ridiculous friend better than a cunning enemy?</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Phaedr.</b> Certainly.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Soc.</b> And when the orator instead of putting an ass in the place of a horse puts good for evil being himself as ignorant of their true nature as the city on which he imposes is ignorant; and having studied the notions of the multitude, falsely persuades them not about "the shadow of an ass," which he confounds with a horse, but about good which he confounds with evily-what will be the harvest which rhetoric will be likely to gather after the sowing of that seed?</p>
<p>Finally, of note is that, in the frame story of the <i>Parmenides</i>, someone is mentioned as a student of philosophy who later became "devoted to horses":</p>
<p class="bq">Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said; they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that Antiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno, and remembers a conversation which took place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides many years ago, Pythodorus having often recited it to him.</p>
<p class="bq">Quite true.</p>
<p class="bq">And could we hear it? I asked.</p>
<p class="bq"> Nothing easier, he replied; when he was a youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present his thoughts run in another direction; like his grandfather Antiphon he is devoted to horses. But, if that is what you want, let us go and look for him; he dwells at Melita, which is quite near, and he has only just left us to go home.</p>
<p>Clearly this indicates that devotion to horses is a maturation achieved by those who complete their philosophical studies. The condition for this is revealed in the <i>Lysis</i> (emphasis mine):</p>
<p class="bq">Then nothing which does not love in return is beloved by a lover?</p>
<p class="bq">I think not.</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Then they are not lovers of horses, whom the horses do not love in return</b>; nor lovers of quails, nor of dogs, nor of wine, nor of gymnastic exercises, who have no return of love; no, nor of wisdom, unless wisdom loves them in return.</p>
</div>
<p><a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index-Plato.html">(link)</a></p>
<h3>Aristotle</h3>
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<p>(todo: Categories book 1; On Interpretation sec 1.8; Metaphysics 3.2, 4.7, 5.*, 7.*, 10.*, 11.*, 13.*, 14.*)</p>
<p>(todo: Nicomachean Ethics 1.*, 2.*, 8.11, 10.5; Politics 1.2, 2, 4, 6; On the Soul 1.1)</p>
<p>http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/index-Aristotle.html</p>
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<p><i>An analysis of horses in the Aristotelian corpus is forthcoming</i>
<p>Aristotle was reportedly so impressed by the grandeur and majesty of the horse that he <a href="http://the-toast.net/2015/04/29/here-are-some-paintings-of-a-woman-riding-aristotle-like-a-pony/">sought to become one himself</a>.</p>
<h3>Plotinus</h3>
<p>In the <i>Third Ennead</i>, third tractate, section 1, Plotinus uses horses as a model for humanity:
<p class="bq">The Souls are in harmony with each other and so, too, are their acts and effects; but it is harmony in the sense of a resultant unity built out of contraries. All things, as they rise from a unity, come back to unity by a sheer need of nature; differences unfold themselves, contraries are produced, but all is drawn into one organized system by the unity at the source. The principle may be illustrated from the different classes of animal life: there is one genus, horse, though horses among themselves fight and bite and show malice and angry envy: so all the others within the unity of their Kind; and so humanity...</p>
<p class="bq">Having attached all to this source, we turn to move down again in continuous division: we see the Unity fissuring, as it reaches out into Universality, and yet embracing all in one system so that with all its differentiation it is one multiple living thing- an organism in which each member executes the function of its own nature while it still has its being in that One Whole; fire burns; horse does horse work; men give, each the appropriate act of the peculiar personal quality- and upon the several particular Kinds to which each belongs follow the acts, and the good or evil of the life.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161004032918/http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plotenn/enn206.htm">(link)</a></p>
<p>In the <i>Sixth Ennead</i>, seventh tractate, section 9, Plotinus describes how the Thought of Horse is an Intellect:
<p class="bq">We must reflect that, since the many forms of lives are movements- and so with the Intellections- they cannot be identical: there must be different lives, distinct intellections, degrees of lightsomeness and clarity: there must be firsts, seconds, thirds, determined by nearness to the Firsts. This is how some of the Intellections are gods, others of a secondary order having what is here known as reason, while others again belong to the so-called unreasoning: but what we know here as unreasoning was There a Reason-Principle; the unintelligent was an Intellect; the Thinker of Horse was Intellect and the Thought, Horse, was an Intellect.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161004032920/http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plotenn/enn647.htm">(link)</a></p>
<h2>Horses in Medieval Philosophy</h2>
<h3>St. Thomas Aquinas</h3>
<img src="equinas.jpg" height=300>
<p>In <i>Summa Theologica</i> I.44.3, Aquinas addresses an objection dealing with Platonic Forms:
<p class="bq"><b>Article 3. Whether the exemplar cause is anything besides God?</b></p>
<p class="bq"><b>Objection 2.</b> Further, whatever is by participation is reduced to something self-existing, as a thing ignited is reduced to fire, as stated above (Article 1). But whatever exists in sensible things exists only by participation of some species. This appears from the fact that in all sensible species is found not only what belongs to the species, but also individuating principles added to the principles of the species. Therefore it is necessary to admit self-existing species, as for instance, a "per se" man, and a "per se" horse, and the like, which are called the exemplars. Therefore exemplar causes exist besides God.</p>
<p>Aquinas discusses the Form of Horses further in I.65.4:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Article 4. Whether the forms of bodies are from the angels?</b></p>
<p class="bq"><b>I answer that</b>, It was the opinion of some that all corporeal forms are derived from spiritual substances, which we call the angels. And there are two ways in which this has been stated. For Plato held that the forms of corporeal matter are derived from, and formed by, forms immaterially subsisting, by a kind of participation. Thus he held that there exists an immaterial man, and an immaterial horse, and so forth, and that from such the individual sensible things that we see are constituted, in so far as in corporeal matter there abides the impression received from these separate forms, by a kind of assimilation, or as he calls it, "participation" (Phaedo xlix). And, according to the Platonists, the order of forms corresponds to the order of those separate substances; for example, that there is a single separate substance, which is horse and the cause of all horses, whilst above this is separate life, or "per se" life, as they term it, which is the cause of all life, and that above this again is that which they call being itself, which is the cause of all being. Avicenna, however, and certain others, have maintained that the forms of corporeal things do not subsist "per se" in matter, but in the intellect only. Thus they say that from forms existing in the intellect of spiritual creatures (called "intelligences" by them, but "angels" by us) proceed all the forms of corporeal matter, as the form of his handiwork proceeds from the forms in the mind of the craftsman. This theory seems to be the same as that of certain heretics of modern times, who say that God indeed created all things, but that the devil formed corporeal matter, and differentiated it into species.</p>
<p>In III.1.1, Aquinas address an objection having to do with the Incarnation:</p>
<p class="bq"><b>Objection 2.</b> Further, it is not fitting to unite things that are infinitely apart, even as it would not be a fitting union if one were "to paint a figure in which the neck of a horse was joined to the head of a man" [Horace, Ars. Poet., line 1]. But God and flesh are infinitely apart; since God is most simple, and flesh is most composite--especially human flesh. Therefore it was not fitting that God should be united to human flesh.</p>
<p>Note carefully that in the Horace quote, the objection is to the union of a horse and a man. Note also that in the analogous example the objection discusses, the objection is to the union of God and man. Matching by their shared member, man, the parallel is therefore between the horse and God, continuing the earliest theme found in Parmenides and Xenophanes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/index.html">(link)</a></p>
<h2>Horses in Modern Philosophy</h2>
<h3>Rene Descartes</h3>
<p>In the <i>First Replies</i>, Descartes attempts to harness the idea of a horse with or without wings to illustrate a point, but he abandons the example in favour of another because "their [horses'] natures are not transparently clear to us". Descartes thus illustrates the folly of man to try and bridle the spirit of freedom which is the horse.</p>
<h3>Anne Conway</h3>
<p>In her <i>Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy</i>, Conway uses the horse in an extended explanation about the mutability of creatures. Regarding the horse, she says, "let us take a horse, which is a creature edued with diverse degrees of perfection by his creator, as not only strength of body, but (as I may so say) a certain kind of knowledge, how he ought to serve his master, and moreover also love, fear, courage, memory, and diverse other qualities which are in man..." While Conway gives examples of a horse being perfected to the level of man, she may be forgiven for this oversight, we knowing with our modern knowledge that it is man who must be perfected to the level of a horse.</p>
<h3>John Locke</h3>
<p>In his <i>Essay Concerning Human Understanding</i> II.xxiii.4, Locke chooses to use horses as an example of a corporeal substance.</p>
<h3>George Berkeley</h3>
<p>In his <i>Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge</i>, intro.10, Berkeley describes his faculty of imagination:</p>
<p class="bq">I can imagine a man with two heads, or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or separated from the rest of the body.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly Berkeley was affected with no less wonder than philosophers have had since the beginning as with Parmenides and Xenophanes.</P>
<h3>David Hume</h3>
<p>In his <i>A Treatise of Human Nature</i>, book III, part III, section I, after introducing sympathy as the origin of morals, Hume discusses beauty (emphasis mine):
<p class="bq">Our sense of beauty depends very much on this principle; and where any object has atendency to produce pleasure in its possessor, it is always regarded as beautiful; as every object, that has a tendency to produce pain, is disagreeable and deformed. Thus the conveniency of a house, the fertility of a field, <b>the strength of a horse,</b> the capacity, security, and swift-sailing of a vessel, form the principal beauty of these several objects.</p>
<p><abbr title="Literally nobody">Some</abbr> have suggested that Hume marks a shift from the value of horses being derived from their inner nobility to the value of horses being derived from their usefulness to man, for example, from their strength. This may be carried out by Hume's later discussion in his <i>Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding</i>, in section II:
<p class="bq">When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted. A virtuous horse we can conceive; because, from our own feeling, we can conceive virtue; and this we may unite to the figure and shape of a horse, which is an animal familiar to us.</p>
<p>Hume's example of a virtuous horse is usually omitted in favor fo the example of the golden mountain, no doubt because the idea of virtue is analytic to horses.</p>
<p>Like Berkeley, Hume also brings up horses when discussing imagination in section V, part II:
<p class="bq">We can, in our conception, join the head of a man to the body of a horse; but it is not in our power to believe that such an animal has ever really existed.</p>
<p>Most likely, we are not capable of believing that such an animal has existed because no head of man could be worthy of such a body.</p>
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<h3>Benedict Spinoza</h3>
<p>In his <i>Ethics</i>, Spinoza frequently discusses horses in the context of mind. In a note on Part II, Proposition 18:</p>
<p class="bq">PROP. XVIII. If the human body has once been affected by two or more bodies at the same time, when the mind afterwards imagines any of them, it will straightway remember the others also.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">For a soldier, for instance, when he sees the tracks of a horse in sand, will at once pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a horseman, and thence to the thought of war, &c.; while a countryman will proceed from the thought of a horse to the thought of a plough, a field, &c. Thus every man will follow this or that train of thought, according as he has been in the habit of conjoining and associating the mental images of things in this or that manner.</p>
<p>Recall what Aristotle once said: "The soul is in a sense all things." For Spinoza, it seems that the horse is, in a sense, all things as well. However, Spinoza's attitude on horses sours further into the <i>Ethics</i>.
<p><button onClick="javascript:toggle('morespinoza')">More horses in Spinoza</button></p>
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<p>In a note on a corollary to Proposition 49, he uses horses as an example of something nonexistent:</p>
<p class="bq">PROP. XLIX. There is in the mind no volition or affirmation and negation, save that which an idea, inasmuch as it is an idea, involves.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">Corollary.--Will and understanding are one and the same.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]
<p class="bq">Secondly, it may be objected that experience seems to teach us especially clearly, that we are able to suspend our judgment before assenting to things which we perceive; this is confirmed by the fact that no one is said to be deceived, in so far as he perceives anything, but only in so far as he assents or dissents.</p>
<p class="bq">For instance, he who feigns a winged horse, does not therefore admit that a winged horse exists; that is, he is not deceived, unless he admits in addition that a winged horse does exist. Nothing therefore seems to be taught more clearly by experience, than that the will or faculty of assent is free and different from the faculty of understanding.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">To the second objection I reply by denying, that we have a free power of suspending our judgment: for, when we say that anyone suspends his judgment, we merely mean that he sees, that he does not perceive the matter in question adequately. Suspension of judgment is, therefore, strictly speaking, a perception, and not free will. In order to illustrate the point, let us suppose a boy imagining a horse, and perceive nothing else. Inasmuch as this imagination involves the existence of the horse (II. xvii. Coroll.), and the boy does not perceive anything which would exclude the existence of the horse, he will necessarily regard the horse as present: he will not be able to doubt of its existence, although he be not certain thereof.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">Further, I grant that no one can be deceived, so far as actual perception extends--that is, I grant that the mind's imaginations, regarded in themselves, do not involve error (II. xvii. note); but I deny, that a man does not, in the act of perception, make any affirmation. For what is the perception of a winged horse, save affirming that a horse has wings? If the mind could perceive nothing else but the winged horse, it would regard the same as present to itself: it would have no reasons for doubting its existence, nor any faculty of dissent, unless the imagination of a winged horse be joined to an idea which precludes the existence of the said horse, or unless the mind perceives that the idea which it possess of a winged horse is inadequate, in which case it will either necessarily deny the existence of such a horse, or will necessarily be in doubt on the subject.</p>
<p>Spinoza's dangerous game continues in a note on Part III, Proposition 57, as he accuses the noble horse of baser instincts:</p>
<p class="bq">PROP. LVII. Any emotion of a given individual differs from the emotion of another individual, only in so far as the essence of the one individual differs from the essence of the other.</p>
<p class="bq">[...]</p>
<p class="bq">Hence it follows, that the emotions of the animals which are called irrational (for after learning the origin of mind we cannot doubt that brutes feel) only differ from man's emotions, to the extent that brute nature differs from human nature. Horse and man are alike carried away by the desire of procreation; but the desire of the former is equine, the desire of the latter is human.</p>
<p>This heresy may have been what led to his expulsion from the Jewish community in Amsterdam.</p>
<p>Spinoza's final discussion of horses is found in Part IV in the Preface:</p>
<p class="bq">Again, we shall that men are more perfect, or more imperfect, in proportion as they approach more or less nearly to the said type. For it must be specially remarked that, when I say that a man passes from a lesser to a greater perfection, or vice versa, I do not mean that he is changed from one essence or reality to another; for instance, a horse would be as completely destroyed by being changed into a man, as by being changed into an insect. What I mean is, that we conceive the thing's power of action, in so far as this is understood by its nature, to be increased or diminished.</p>
<p>Perhaps we may forgive Spinoza for his earlier comments, since, the horse having much greater power of action than man, it is clear that in his system the horse is the more perfect.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm">(link)</a></p>
<h2>Horses in Contemporary Philosophy</h2>
<h3>Peter Van Inwagen</h3>
<p>In his essay "Meta-Ontology", van Inwagen uses unicorns and horses as an example:</p>
<p class="bq">To say that unicorns do not exist is to something very much like saying that the number of unicorns is 0; to say that horses exist is to say that the number of horses is 1 or more.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161004033520/http://andrewmbailey.com/pvi/Meta-ontology.pdf">(link)</a></p>
<h3>Alexander Pruss</h3>
<p>On page 98 of <i>The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment</i>, Pruss divides the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact into horsey facts, contingent true propositions that entail there is a horse, and unhorsey facts, which are inferior.</p>
<p>As a parody of subtraction arguments meant to establish the possibility of nothing existing, Pruss developed the following argument that there are infinitely many horses:</p>
<p class="bq">1. For any finite number <i>n</i>, if there can be <i>n</i> horses, there can be fewer than <i>n</i> horses.<br>2. There cannot be fewer than zero horses.<br>3. Thus there must be an infinite number of horses.</p>
<p class="bq">The inference proceeds as follows. Imagine that there can be some finite number, say 10, of horses. Then by applying (1) ten times, we will conclude that there can be fewer than zero horses.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161004032656/http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2015/07/an-argument-that-there-must-be.html">(link)</a></p>
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