Geographical Index > United States > South Carolina > Orangeburg County > Report # 993|
Submitted by witness on Sunday, July 20, 1997.
A teenager witnesses a black, fur covered creature attempt to pull a dog pen out of the ground.
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STATE: South Carolina
COUNTY: Orangeburg County
NEAREST TOWN: Neeses
OBSERVED: At 12:00 noon the witness, Jackie Hutto, heard noise and agitation from the dogs that he keeps in a dog pen at the back of his families property. At first, Jackie went to the door of his home and yelled at the dogs to quiet them down. After about 5 more minutes of the barking, Jackie went to investigate to see what was wrong.
When he arrived at the dog pen, he saw a large black animal pulling on the wire of the pen, Jackie walked around the corner of a tool shed there at the pen to get a better look at the animal. When he looked around the corner of the pen he saw a 8-8.5 foot tall bigfoot (He measured its height by the fence, which is appox. 9 feet tall) pulling at the wire on the pen, then the bigfoot turned to look at Jackie, when it turned it turned its whole body toward Jackie, not just its head.
Jackie screamed and ran toward the house, looking over his shoulder as he ran. He saw the bigfoot turn and run toward the forest, he mentioned he heard it grunting as it ran, and he also heard its footsteps as it ran, like a loud thumping sound. When Jackie screamed, his brother, David (16) ran outside to see what was wrong, when he did he saw Jackie running toward him, and the bigfoot running toward the forest.
The witness was close to the animal, thus he got a good description. Jackie described the creature as 8-8.5 feet tall, covered over most of its body in black hair. Its face and chest were bald, and the skin was thick looking and brown in color. He said the teeth were clenched and were big, "blocked shaped" and stained, and its eyes were big and round. The boy said that creature was clearly a male, judging by its genitalia.
He also noticed a worn spot on each knee of the creature that was about the size of a 50 cent piece. Jackie also mentioned that the bigfoot smelled like a goat. No footprints were found, the witnesses didn't return to the spot where the incident occured until the next day, due to the scare they recieved earlier. A thunderstorm came through the night of the incident, so the next morning, no evidence was found.
ALSO NOTICED: The witness said that when he was walking through the forest on occasion before this event, he would smell a strong goat like odor. Also, they occasionally hear loud, high pitched screams from the forest behind their house.
OTHER WITNESSES: The witness was inside his home until he heard the noise from the dog pens.
ENVIRONMENT: This area of the state is criss-crossed with numerous small creeks and rivers, lots of swampy bottom land that border on large agricultural tracts, and it is sparsely populated. It is a haven for all sorts of wild game.
Follow-up investigation report:
NOTES: This sighting has spurred a local media frenzy, as well as some national attention. I have contacted the reporter covering the story, Andrew Haworth, and the witnesses, Jackie and David Hutto.
Andrew is covering the report sincerely, and responsibly. Jackie and David seem very sincere, and egar to answer questions, offering details that they are not prompted for. When they first reported the story, they told the reporter that Jackie was a 23 year old woman, apparently in an attempt to remain anonymous, but on further consideration, they decided to be truthful about all facets of their encounter.
They want others to feel that they can contact the authorities if they have seen something, and want people to know that they feel bigfoot isn't dangerous.
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New Orleans-born Krazy Kat cartoonist George Herriman
New Orleans-born Krazy Kat cartoonist George Herriman (Photo by Will Connell, courtesy Michael Tisserand)
"Krazy: A Life in Black and White," the biography of Crescent City-born newspaper cartoonist extraordinaire George Herriman (1880-1944) is an absorbing study of a genius with a secret.
Herriman's equally compelling and confounding "Krazy Kat" cartoon is considered a milestone in modern art. As New Orleans author Michael Tisserand deftly points out in his 549-page volume, the illogic of Herriman's ink-on-paper drawings mirror the absurdity of the racial divide in early 20th-century America.
After 10 years of scouring microfilm archives, yellowed newspapers and public records, Tisserand has pieced together Herriman's journey from his humble birth in the Treme neighborhood to heights of fame in Jazz-era New York and Los Angeles. It wasn't easy.
"I had to teach myself to be an historian," Tisserand said. "I didn't anticipate the amount of difficulty it would be finding Herriman's work."
Like a snake handler, Tisserand uncoils the confusing racial politics of New Orleans in the Jim Crow era, where the descendants of slaves and the descendants of so-called free people of color suffered segregation, discrimination and violence at the hands of the white population.
As Tisserand explains, when Herriman was 10 years old, his parents fled the South for a new beginning in California, where personal reinvention was possible. As Tisserand wrote, "Herriman was a black man born in New Orleans." But upon reaching the Pacific, Herriman's parents "had obscured their identity and 'passed' for white."
Had they not done so, Tisserand points out, the creator of the immeasurably influential Krazy Kat cartoon could never have received the classical education that he did, found work in major American newspapers, or bought a home in the Hollywood Hills, owing to universal racism.
Passages of "Krazy" are perplexing to say the least. Tisserand reveals that the newspapers Herriman worked for routinely published stories about white people who were ruined when their black ancestry was discovered. Yet Herriman's pals teased him about his close-cut curly hair and his ever-present fedora, apparently without suspecting that their probing could threaten his career.
In keeping with the entertainment customs of the time, Herriman occasionally drew demeaning stereotypes of African American people, despite his apparent knowledge of his heritage.
Tisserand handles these painful conundrums as gracefully as it is possible to do so. He offers readers a path to draw their own conclusions, though his sympathies are clearly with his complicated, self-doubting, self-effacing subject.
About midway through the book Tisserand delightedly introduces Herriman's masterpiece, a blithely bewildered black cat that is routinely abused by a brick-throwing white mouse. More than a century after his first appearance, Krazy Kat remains an enigma.
As Tisserand points out, Krazy is completely androgynous, switching sexes as Herriman sees fit. Krazy is masochistic, welcoming the mouse's battery as an indication of love. Krazy lives in an Arizona landscape as bleak and alien as anything Salvador Dali might have summoned from his subconscious, and speaks in a strange stilted dialect that bridges Shakespeare with the turn-of-the-20th-century 7th Ward.
Tisserand believes that Krazy's idiosyncratic language symbolizes the American racial and cultural melting pot.
"It's in Krazy's language that Harriman achieved what I think he was going for more than anything else," Tisserand said, "which is a sort of depiction of the entire rude, wonderful American character. It all mixes together in the language; one sentence can have German, French, Creole, Yiddish, you know, highbrow English, lowbrow English, and newspaperman slang, all jumbled together."
Krazy also epitomizes optimism, come what may. So much so, that his sunny worldview sometimes seems subversive.
Tisserand asserts that, to an extent, it may have been just that.
Stripped of humans, Herriman's Krazy Kat cartoons, which appeared from coast to coast, allowed him to subtly comment on the superficiality of race, as the animal characters occasionally swap colors.
Sometimes the changes are logical, as when Krazy visits a beauty parlor to become an alluring bleach blonde a la Jean Harlow. But occasionally, Tisserand points out, the character's changes in complexion are as random as the racial rules of the country. "Sometimes Krazy just turns white and Ignatz (the mouse) turns black," he said.
Herriman was much beloved by his fellow cartoonists, intellectuals, and modern artists, but, Tisserand points out, his cartoon was always near the bottom of reader popularity polls. Its survival for three decades in the cutthroat early 20th-century newspaper business is as much a mystery as the goings-on in the strip itself. But, like a true artist, Herriman never backed away from his peculiar vision.
"His work is unflinchingly uncompromising," Tisserand said. "He never seemed capable of doing anything less than bringing everything he had to the work, whether it's a literary allusion that most readers wouldn't catch or whether it's a visual allusion to a Navaho rug. He would do what he wanted, even if he knew, 'Boy, readers are not going to connect with this.'"
Bravo to Tisserand for helping us connect. It's an amazing accomplishment to uncover so much information about a cartoon that the public has largely forgotten, in a style that's hard to describe, by a man that needed to keep his background in shadow.
Speaking of Herriman's paradoxical legacy, Tisserand said: "I think he succeeded in creating a comic strip that reflected the way he viewed the world. It's delightful and sad and filled with unconquerable love and lots of bricks to the head."
The HarperCollins hardback with a 16-page photo setion will be available Dec. 6 for $35. Below, find an excerpt from "Krazy" that illuminates Herriman's influence on contemporary comics:
No book collections of "Krazy Kat" were published in Herriman's lifetime. By the time of his death, most comics pages had been discarded, or were disintegrating in garages and basements across the nation. Herriman's originals piled up at King Features, where young cartoonist Mort Walker once noticed that they were being used to sop up water leaks.
Yet when one influential fan heard the news of Herriman's death, he determined that "Krazy Kat" would not be forgotten. Poet E. E. Cummings contacted his publisher, Henry Holt and Company, to propose that he collect and edit a volume of "Krazy Kat" comics, as well as write the introduction. Gilbert Seldes was delighted to hear the news. "I am extraordinarily glad that you are going to do this," Seldes wrote to Cummings in the fall. "May I place at your disposal my ancient and incomplete collection of these masterpieces, and give you also whatever clerical or other assistance I can."
The The next year, Henry Holt published Cummings' Krazy Kat, announcing that the comic strip "had been away from the papers for some time now," and that it was "something for Americans to be proud of."
Cummings' book featured 168 strips, each selected by the poet. In his introduction, he described a "meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way." Cummings wrote of Krazy as a "humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature," understood by Officer Pupp and Ignatz no more than the "mythical denizens of a twodimensional realm understand some threedimensional intruder." Cummings added new interpretations to Herriman's work, likening Krazy to the democracy's "spiritual values of wisdom, love, and joy" and Pupp and Ignatz to "those red-brown-and-blackshirted Puritans." With that, he joined would become a large chorus of writers, artists and academics seeking to limn the mysterious devotions of Krazy, Ignatz and Pupp.
Cummings' anthology, while not a commercial success, became a coveted treasure for fans, and its influence ran deep. Most significantly, Cummings' book fell into the hands of a young Midwestern cartoonist, just returned from military service. "After World War II, I began to study the Krazy Kat strip for the first time, for during my younger years I never had the opportunity to see a newspaper that carried it," recalled Charles Schulz. "A book collection of Krazy Kat was published sometime in the late 1940s, which did much to inspire me to create a feature that went beyond the mere actions of ordinary children."
In "Peanuts," Schulz drew deeply from Herriman's themes of love and loss, and sin and guilt. He created a world as devoid of adults as Coconino County was devoid of humans. Whether by intent or coincidence, there even were direct borrowings. Cummings' collection included a series, originally drawn in 1934, showing Krazy, Ignatz and Pupp seated on a log, patiently waiting for the last "ottim liff" to fall. Schulz revisited this storyline frequently, drawing a leaf hanging onto a branch for dear life, or circling in mid-air for one last fling before the rake. In later comics, Schulz even wrote a series of gags in which a school building tosses a brick.
Of all of Schulz's storylines, Lucy's relentless, obsessive football prank most suggested Ignatz and his brick. In fact, a "Krazy Kat" series, first published in 1932, shows Ignatz tying a string on a football, and then pulling it away when Pupp runs to kick it. Pupp, like Charlie Brown after him, lands squarely on his back.
In a conversation with "Mutts" cartoonist Patrick McDonnell, Schulz acknowledged that even Herriman's Navajo-inspired zig-zag designs seemed to find their way onto Charlie Brown's iconic shirt. Schulz would honor his inspiration when he penned a drawing of Charlie Brown wandering onto the Coconino desert and getting beaned by Ignatz. Said Schultz: "I always thought if I could just do something as good as Krazy Kat, I would be happy. Krazy Kat was always my goal." - from "Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White," by Michael Tisserand.


Environmentalist Ma Jun of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, giving a speech recently in the Mary Robinson Speaker Series, discusses the data-driven advocacy he pioneered to hold China’s government and businesses accountable for air and water pollution. In this presentation Jun outlines water pollution, increased coal burning, and the inevitable health impacts that will play out into the future.
Jun has promoted a data-driven approach that uses mapping to visualize these issues. The IPE has pulled together a countrywide water quality map to put the pollution in perspective. Without adequate enforcement and litigation in order to achieve environmental goals, the IPE stepped in with a public online databases of air and water violations by factories throughout China, creating a groundbreaking “blacklist” of polluters. To get off the list, 22 multinational corporations took corrective actions and accepted IPE-supervised environmental audits of their Chinese factories.
A coalition of 39 NGOs in China have come together to encourage manufacturers to green their supply chains. This social pressure is an added motivation, by making this data transparent, and auditing companies that want to be removed from the list.
View the complete presentation via this YouTube video.


Maybe they won’t be quite as fast to disappear from the scene as the climate warms–according to a recent study.
As a life-long resident of the southern Appalachians, you might say that my totem creature is the salamander. No place on earth boasts the diversity and the numbers to be found in a typical, intact mountain forest. The statistics are quite eye-opening:
“No one really knows how many salamanders reside in the southern Appalachians. However, it is estimated that the salamanders inhabiting just a square mile of forest would have a combined biomass of 2,500 to 5,000 pounds–which is made even more impressive when you consider that many salamanders weigh about as much as a teaspoon of sugar.”
I took herpetology my first semester in graduate school. Ann wasn’t too keen on the snakes that stayed in the clothes hamper overnight until I could claim credit-points for them. But the frogs and salamanders in south Alabama (Auburn U) were present in amazing diversity, and it is from those warm wet nights in the forest that most of my herpetophilia was born.
When is the last time you saw a salamander? Summer is not a great time to look during the day, but on a wet night with a flashlight, you might be rewarded by a good bit of activity if you look in the right place.
We have a hard time caring about things we never see. Maybe if we looked harder and kept our eyes open, we’d care more about a lot of living things we manage to be unaware of.


The most familiar of the dolphins and the most likely to be seen from British shores, the bottlenose dolphin is found all round the world. Closer to home, the best places to see these dolphins are the Moray Firth in Scotland, Cardigan Bay in Wales and the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. Bottlenose dolphins are large, fairly plain grey dolphins, darker grey above and paler below. They have a short beak short and a large triangular dorsal fin that curves backwards.
Bottlenose dolphins are social animals, usually found in small groups of up to 15. They are very acrobatic, often jumping out of the water or even doing somersaults. The bottlenose dolphin feeds on fish such as salmon, flatfish, herring, mackerel and cod.
- Length: up to 4m
- Weight: 500kg
- Average Lifespan: 45-50 years
Protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981, listed under CITES Appendix II and classified as a Priority Species in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Also protected under the Conservation (Natural Habitats, etc.) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1995
Found all around the UK. The only population of bottlenose dolphins that is resident in the UK all year round lives in the Moray Firth.
When to see
January – December
- Bottlenose dolphins are thought to be one of the most intelligent animals. They are easily taught to perform tricks and are often seen in aquaria.
- These dolphins are also known to help those needing aid – often rescuing people from drowning or shark attack.
- Bottlenose dolphins often catch their prey by striking the fish with their tails to stun them


Speusippus of Athens was the son of Plato’s sister Potone; he became head of the Academy on Plato’s death in 348/347 and remained its head for eight years (Diogenes Laertius iv 1), apparently until his death. His date of birth is harder to get a fix on; it has reasonably been estimated at ca. 410. He apparently wrote a lot: “a great many treatises and many dialogues” (ibid. iv 4; Diogenes lists about 30 titles, and his bibliography is on his own admission incomplete). We have very little of what he wrote, if any (we have something from a work later attributed to him, On Pythagorean Numbers, discussed below, but this is not one of Diogenes’ titles; and we may have something preserved in Iamblichus, De communi mathematica scientia iv, also discussed below).
Diogenes tells us (iv 1) that Speusippus “abided by the views of Plato”; from what little we can tell, this is simply false. In particular, Speusippus rejected the Theory of Forms.
References will be to the primary sources; the two most recent collections of the fragments (Isnardi Parente 1980, Tarán 1981) have indices that will enable the reader to locate the texts (Lang 1911 does not). Citations from Plato and Aristotle are to any standard edition; those from other ancient authors are taken from texts listed in the bibliography (translations are in all cases my own, but where an alternative English translation is available, I have given a reference to it).
What we can infer, mostly from Aristotle but with a few supplements from other authors, will be covered under three headings:
- 1. Metaphysics
- 2. Epistemology
- 3. Ethics
- Academic Tools
- Other Internet Resources
- Related Entries
Aristotle gives us an account of Plato’s metaphysical views that goes considerably beyond what we find in Plato’s dialogues. In fact, Aristotle gives us what he says are Plato’s views and also those of others. From this we learn what little we can about Speusippus and his contemporary, Xenocrates.
According to Aristotle, all three of Plato, Speusippus, and Xenocrates constructed their worlds operating with two principles (archai): the One and something opposed to it. The latter appears under different names, and it looks as if the different names go with different ones among the three: ‘the Indefinite Dyad’ or ‘the large and (the) small’ seem to be the expressions favored by Plato, ‘plurality’ seems to be associated with Speusippus, and ‘the unequal’ with Xenocrates. And for Plato, the One was identified with the Good. These philosophers employed these two principles, according to Aristotle, to generate derivative entities (substances, beings) of other types: Forms, numbers, and so on. This generation was laid out as if it were a process in time, but the generation-story was to be understood instead as one understands a mathematical construction: the construction takes place in time, but what is constructed is an eternal structure. And in this eternal structure the principles were not temporally first, but first in relation to the dependence on them of the things constructed.
These principles are primarily employed by these three thinkers in connection with numbers. But there are two ranges of number operating in Aristotle’s discussions (see Metaphysics I 6, XIII 8–9). There are what he refers to as formal numbers, one for each numeral; these are the (Platonic) Forms for numbers. But since there is only one for each numeral, and a mathematician has to be able to add two and two to get four, there is another range of numbers required: the mathematical numbers, indefinitely many for each numeral n, each of the indefinitely many a collection of n units. As Aristotle has it, Plato accepted both ranges, and Speusippus only mathematical numbers; Speusippus, then, rejects Plato’s Theory of Forms and specifically his belief in formal numbers.
There are only two passages in which Aristotle mentions Speusippus by name in dealing with his metaphysical views: Metaphysics VII 2. 1028b21 and XII 7. 1072b31. Neither passage gives us anything we could call a ‘fragment’: there is no indication that any actual quoting is taking place. But it is from these meager hints that reconstruction of Speusippus’ metaphysics must start.
The method followed in the reconstruction of Speusippus’ views is a matter of chaining: we start from our two anchor texts, and look for other passages in which the views ascribed to him in them are under discussion. Those passages will sometimes bring in new views; we then ascribe those views to Speusippus, and go looking for passages in which those views seem to be alluded to. No one needs to be told how tenuous such chaining is: each link is weak, and compounding probabilities would tell us that a chain of this type is actually weaker than its weakest link. But chaining in that way is all we can do. Fortunately, it results in a fairly coherent picture.
In the first of our two anchor texts, Aristotle, discussing the ways in which people have answered the question ‘what are the substances?’, ascribes to Plato the view that there are not only perceptible substances but eternal ones of two types: forms and mathematical objects. He then says that Speusippus thought there were even more types of substance; he “started from the One” and adopted principles (archai) for each of his types of substance: “one for numbers, another for magnitudes, then for soul”. So we have at least four layers of beings: numbers, magnitudes, souls, and perceptible beings; the One is Speusippus’ starting-point, but he has different principles for each level of being.
In the other of our anchor texts, Aristotle, having just sketched a proof for the existence of an unmoved mover, which he refers to as a principle (arche) and as ‘god’, says something about Speusippus’ views about principles: that he (and the Pythagoreans) suppose that a principle is not characterizable as ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’, going on the analogy of plants and animals, where beauty and goodness emerge in the end state rather than the beginning. So, although we have principles at each level, those principles are not themselves complete entities at that level.
Then we begin chaining.
In Metaphysics XIV 4–5, Aristotle discusses various Platonistic views about the relationships between the first principles and goodness; XIV 4. 1091a34–36 refers to contemporaries of Aristotle’s who deny that the good is among the principles but suppose it comes in later in the development; the second of our two anchor texts warrants the guess that Speusippus is among them. And then some other things about the passage in XIV fall into place: Speusippus’ main way of referring to the principle opposed to the One was ‘plurality’, and, more importantly, he denied a theory about causality that was part of Plato’s Theory of Forms as we find that Theory in, say, the Phaedo: a theory to the effect that the possession of a feature F by a perceptible object was due to its participation in something supremely F that transmits its being F to the perceptible object; as opposed to this ‘Transmission Theory of Causality’, Speusippus adopted what we might call a Principle of Alien Causality: the first cause of Fs is not itself F. This Principle is going to be difficult to formulate, and the word ‘first’ in this formulation needs emphasis: Speusippus surely agrees with Aristotle that the cause of a human being is one or more other human beings, so presumably the Principle has to be restricted in some way to first causes or principles in some more robust sense. Unfortunately, the texts (even the Iamblichean passage cited below) give us no help here.
Metaphysics XIV 5. 1092a11–17 returns to the analogy of animals and plants which XII 7 told us Speusippus used; Aristotle says:
And one does not rightly understand either if one compares the principles of the whole to that of animals and plants, because from indefinite, incomplete things the more complete always arise, which is why he says it holds thus for the first things, so that the one itself is not even a being.
Sticking by our method of chaining, we add to Speusippus’ package the claim that the One is not a being (1092a14–15). And this is an instantiation of the Principle of Alien Causality: the first cause of beings is not itself a being.
Aristotle goes on to speak of “those who say that the beings are derived from elements and that of the beings the numbers are the first” (1092a21–22). And again we may suppose that Speusippus is among them: he would say that the elements, not being so derived, are not beings, and that numbers, derived from those elements, are the first beings. Here we may go back to the first of our anchor texts (Metaphysics VII 2. 1028b21) for some confirmation.
There may be additional confirmation in a more remote source. In a Latin translation of part of Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Parmenides (the original Greek for this part of the commentary has not survived), Proclus tells us that “the one is prior and a cause of being, therefore it itself according to its existence is not a being, as supporting being; nor does it partake of being”, and that Speusippus also subscribes to this view, although Speusippus states it “as if reporting the sentiments of the ancients.” Unfortunately, if this does go back to Speusippus, it may have been contaminated by neoplatonic elements, for Proclus has Speusippus saying that the ancients thought “the one better than being and that from which the being derives”, and this should not be Speusippus, given his rejection of the claim that the One is good (see above). But Speusippus’ rejection of this claim would have been so bizarre to a neoplatonist that perhaps Proclus simply managed to read past it. Perhaps what Proclus (or his source) read is that the One is ‘above’ being and that from which being derives, and, given his neoplatonic mindset, unhesitatingly thought ‘better than’.
It has seemed to many scholars that Speusippus’ denial that the One is a being gains plausibility from Plato’s Republic: VI 509b2–10 has often been read as placing the Form of the Good (which, according to the tradition stemming from Aristotle, Plato identifies with the One) ‘beyond being’ and so making the top of Plato’s ontological ladder not a being, either. But this is inconsistent with other passages in the Republic in which the Form of the Good is plainly said to be a being (e.g., VII 518cd, 526e), and the phrase often translated ‘beyond being’ in 509b can be read simply as meaning ‘on the far edge of being’. This does not mean that there is nothing pertinent in Plato; there is, in the later dialogues, especially the Parmenides (see below). But Republic VI 509b2–10 cannot be cited in support of Speusippus’ view.
If we accept this much, then, by further chaining, it looks as if we have a quotation or at least paraphrase of Speusippus’ views concerning the One, plurality, the numbers, and even geometrical objects in a chapter of the De communi mathematica scientia (On Mathematical Science in General, hereafter DCMS) of Iamblichus (3rd century C.E.). Iamblichus was a student of Porphyry, who was in turn a student of Plotinus: this is the beginning of Neoplatonism, and there are many resemblances as well as differences between Neoplatonism and Speusippus’ views. But a case has been made (Merlan 1968) for the idea that chapter iv of DCMS contains paraphrase if not quotation from Speusippus.
Iamblichus is known for something that we should call ‘plagiarism’: he often quotes without attribution. This cannot have seemed in any way wrong to him: one of his quotations is a longish stretch from Plato’s Republic, and he is not, of course, claiming that for his own. Presumably it is an act of homage: Iamblichus is thinking that he can certainly not do better for what he wants to say than Plato, so he, with reverence but not attribution, quotes. The hope is that he is doing this in iv. There we read:
For the mathematical numbers one must posit two things, the first and highest principles, the One (which indeed one ought not yet even call a being, because of the fact that it is simple and because of the fact that it is a principle for the things that are, while the principle is not yet such as are the things of which it is a principle), and again another principle, that of plurality, which can in its own right provide division as well, and for this reason we may, by way of making a comparison appropriate to its capacity, assert it to be like some moist and completely pliable matter; from which, the one and the principle of plurality, there is produced the first kind, of numbers, from both of these when combined with the help of some persuadable necessity.
A bit later in the chapter, Iamblichus or his source says:
But it is fit to call the one neither beautiful nor good, because of the fact that it is above the beautiful and the good; for it is when nature proceeds farther away from the things in the beginning that, first, the beautiful appears, and, second, when the elements have an even longer distance, the good.
Also in DCMS iv, we find:
But the elements from which the numbers are produced do not yet belong there as either beautiful or good; but from the combination of the one and the matter that is cause of plurality number exists, and first in these that which is and beauty appear, while next from the elements of lines geometrical substance appears, in which in the same way there is that which is and the beautiful, but in which there is nothing either ugly or bad; but at the extreme in the fourth and fifth levels which are combined from the last elements badness comes-to-be, not directly, but from inadvertence and failing to master something of that which accords with nature.
The picture here is not Iamblichus’ own; rather, it fits with, and expands on, what we so far have of Speusippus. There are four levels of beings, and above them on a level of its own the One, which is not a being.
And here, in the first quoted passage, we are given two arguments to the effect that the One is not a being.
The first is an argument from the assumed simplicity of the One. This corresponds to things we can find in Plato. In what is frequently referred to as the ‘first hypothesis’ of Plato’s Parmenides (137c-142a), Parmenides begins (137c) by laying it down that the One cannot be many; he then argues, first (137cd), that if the One is, it must be without parts, since otherwise it would be many. Subsequent argumentation makes this a proscription against all attempts to predicate anything positive of the One: any such predicate would pluralize the One, make it consist of parts. Ultimately that will include even the predicate ‘being’: it is supposed to follow that the One “in no way is” (141e9–10), that it is not; that is to say, that it is not a being (e11). It is difficult to believe that Plato himself would have bought this argument and its conclusion. He did buy into some of the train of thought: see Sophist 244b-245e. But both Plato (even in the Sophist) and Aristotle seem prepared to infer from a predication of the form ‘S is P’ a conclusion of the form ‘S is’, whereas in the first hypothesis of the Parmenides and in DCMS iv we have an argument that goes from a predication of the form ‘the One is F’ to the conclusion ‘the One is not’. This is not the place to attempt to sort out the relationship between the Platonic passages and Speusippus, but the interesting suggestion has been made (Graeser 1997, 1999; see also Halfwassen 1993) that Plato is responding to Speusippus in the Parmenides. At any rate, the Argument from Simplicity for the One’s not-being goes back to the Academy.
The second argument for the not-being of the One depends explicitly on the Principle of Alien Causality: “the principle is not yet such as are the things of which it is a principle”; hence the principle of beings cannot itself be a being.
After the One comes the second level, the first beings, numbers, and then magnitudes or geometrical shapes: here we first encounter beauty and goodness. And finally the fourth and fifth levels are going to be those of souls and perceptible objects, and it is here that ugliness and badness appear.
The level of numbers comes about when the second principle, plurality, kicks in. One of the more confusing things about this level is that Speusippus seems to have supposed that among the numbers was the number 1: in this he was apparently ahead of his time, for the generally accepted view was that 1 is not a number (for this see Aristotle, Metaphysics, book X, Euclid, Elements vii def. 2, proof of prop. 1, et passim). That Speusippus accepted the number 1 follows from the mathematics of the one extensive fragment of his work that we have: a quotation preserved in pseudo-Iamblichus, Theologumena arithmeticae (see below). But if this is so, it is essential to recall that we are dealing with Aristotle’s ‘mathematical’ numbers, where there is a plurality for each number. So there is a plurality of numbers 1 (so that we can add 1 and 1 to get 2, etc.). Then the One is not the number 1; the latter comes about when you get a plurality of units, any of which counts as a 1, any couple of which counts as a 2, and so on. That the One is not the number 1 is only what we should expect, given the Principle of Alien Causality: the principle for numbers is not itself a number.
Aristotle more than once complains of Speusippus’ ‘episodic’ universe: apparently the train of causality did not start with the One and go down through the various levels, but started anew at each level. This is explicit in Metaphysics VII 2, cited above: Speusippus had new principles for each level of beings. We need not suppose that the One is different at each level of being in Speusippus’ universe; the text in DCMS would have it that the One is the same principle throughout, but because of differences in what it refers to as the ‘matter’ (see quotation above), the One is realized in different ways at each level: as the number 1, or the unit, in plurality at the level of numbers, as the point, in what DCMS calls ‘place’ or, we might translate, ‘locus’, at the level of geometrical figures. The net effect is that what operates at the beginning of the arithmetical level is the realization of the One in plurality, the unit, which, as it were, represents the One at that level, and what operates at the beginning of the geometrical level is the realization of the One in locus, the point, which similarly represents the One at that level.
We may have a fair amount of information about what Speusippus thought about numbers, preserved in pseudo-Iamblichus’ Theologumena arithmeticae (already mentioned). This book is a compilation from various authors: Anatolius, Nicomachus of Gerasa, possibly Iamblichus himself, possibly authors unknown. It discusses various properties of each of the first ten numbers. When it gets to the number 10, the ‘decad’, after a section that looks as if it descends from Nicomachus, it begins to speak of Speusippus and a book of his which it says was entitled ‘On Pythagorean Numbers’ and was compiled from various Pythagorean writings, especially those of Philolaus (82.10–15: that the book had that title and that Philolaus or any other Pythagorean was a source for Speusippus are both problematic claims). After what purports to be a description of the book (82.15–83.5), it introduces a long quotation from Speusippus himself concerning the number 10.
The description preceding the quotation begins (82. 20) with a passage on the first half of Speusippus’ book, telling us that it talked about numbers of various types and the five so-called ‘Platonic solids’ (the tetrahedron or pyramid, the cube, the octahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron, assigned in the Platonic tradition starting with Timaeus 54d-56b to the elements of which the universe was composed and to the universe itself or to the fifth element, ether). This is relatively unproblematic.
The second half of the book, the author tells us, was about the number 10, the decad. Unfortunately, the description of that half of the book that precedes the quotation contains some wording which it seems impossible to ascribe to Speusippus. The author tells us that Speusippus showed that the number 10 was “a sort of artistic form for the cosmic accomplishments, obtaining in its own right (and not because we use it nor as it happens), and lying before the god that is maker of the all as an all-complete paradigm” (De Falco/Klein 1975, p. 83.2–5, Waterfield 1988, p. 112). The trouble is that we have already got Speusippus rejecting the Theory of Forms, and in particular denying that aspect of the Theory in which the forms are treated as ‘paradigms’: ideal cases that transmit their properties to things that participate in them.
As it happens, this passage is too good to be true: it is almost verbatim what Nicomachus himself wants (see Nicomachus’ Introductio arithmeticae I vi 1, Hoche 1866 p. 12.1–12, D’Ooge et al. 1926 p. 189 e.g.). So it seems best not to ascribe it to Speusippus.
The quotation itself is another matter. But it, too, offers a problem: if Speusippus is telling us what Pythagoreans (perhaps especially including Philolaus) thought, need he be subscribing to the views himself? Speusippus and Xenocrates, among others, were part of a revival of interest in Pythagoreanism within the Academy; it is often thought that in the course of this revival Pythagorean views became distorted through the attempt to assimilate them to the views of one or another member of the Academy: the revival plainly involved Academicians adopting the views they were ascribing to the Pythagoreans. And as for our quotation from Speusippus, what text we have certainly shows no disposition on his part to be critical of the views he is allegedly reporting. So perhaps the best conclusion to adopt, albeit very tentatively, is that he endorses these views.
In the quotation Speusippus tells us that the number 10 is ‘perfect’ or ‘complete’. The explanation in Euclid vii Def. 23 (Heiberg/Stamatis 1970 p. 105; Def. 22 in Heath 1926 p. 278) for the phrase ‘perfect number’ is ‘number that is the sum of its proper divisors’. This makes the first perfect numbers 6, 28, and 496: 10 is not a perfect number in this sense. Rather, Speusippus appears to be speaking of 10 as ‘perfect’ or ‘complete’ in a way that fits with his claim that completeness is not there in the beginning but only comes on once the universe has proceeded a certain way, in particular, far enough that we can speak of numbers. What he means can be illustrated by a single example.
He tells us that a perfect number has to be even, since otherwise it would contain more odd numbers than even ones: a perfect number must have equally many odd and even numbers in it. On that basis he pronounces 10 perfect.
This does not look like a mathematically (or philosophically) interesting conception of perfect numbers, and the same is true of the other points Speusippus makes in favor of the perfection of the number 10. But it does incorporate one feature of great interest: on the face of it, if Speusippus thinks that within the number 10 there are just as many odd as even numbers, he must be counting 1 as an odd number, and therefore a number. (The alternative, which actually must finally be considered seriously, is that he is not counting 2 as a number, either, but this does not seem likely.) That makes him, as already noted, an exception in his time and place.
When we try to consider Speusippus’ metaphysical views as they bear on the other levels of his universe, unfortunately, we have virtually nothing further to tell us what is going on: nothing that tells us either what might be the representative of the One or what the material principle might be at the level of souls, or at the level of perceptible bodies. A passage in Stobaeus (Eclogues I 49.32, Wachsmuth & Hense 1884 p. 364.2–7) that apparently descends from Iamblichus’ De anima tells us that he defined the soul “by the extended in every direction”, but this continues to resist interpretation.
Aristotle says, in Posterior Analytics II 13. 97a6–11:
There is no need for one who is defining and dividing to know all the things that are. And yet some say that it is impossible to know the differences between something and each other thing while one does not know each other thing, and without the differences one cannot know each thing, for a thing is the same as that from which it does not differ, and it is other than that from which it differs.
The ancient commentators (see esp. Anonymous In An. post. 584.17–585.2, where the ascription is credited to Eudemus) tell us that this is Speusippus’ position (it has antecedents in Plato, Philebus 18c and Theaetetus 208c-e).
It is a version of what is sometimes called ‘holism’: knowing something involves knowing where it is located among everything else. In this particular context, knowing a thing appears to be a matter of knowing its definition, and its definition is something arrived at by the Platonic method of division (there is room for controversy here: see Falcon 2000). An example suggested by what Aristotle says elsewhere in this same chapter (96a24-b1, much simplified) might be an attempt to define the number 3 as follows:
(Dtriad) a triad =df a number, odd, prime
We reach this definition by successive divisions:
And then the view being ascribed to Speusippus is that knowing the number 3 is knowing where 3 is on such a grid, along with knowing where every other number on the grid is.
It is very difficult to imagine sustaining this epistemological holism. It might seem easier if we confined the view to things like mathematics. But we already know that Speusippus’ universe extended beyond the realm of mathematical objects, and it seems quite likely that another division suggested by Aristotle in that chapter (96b30–35) would be acceptable (at least in principle) to Speusippus:
The difficulty of sustaining the idea that knowing man is a matter of knowing its position on a tree that locates absolutely every animal, or even every ensouled thing, or (worse yet) absolutely everything, is enormous. But it looks as if Speusippus would have been committed to this.
For we find this in Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos vii 145–146 (Bury 1935 pp. 80, 81):
… but Speusippus said that, since of things some are perceptible and others intelligible, the criterion of the intelligible ones is the scientific account, and that of the perceptible ones is the scientific perception. Scientific perception he understood to be that which partakes of the truth in accordance with the account. For just as the fingers of the flautist or harpist have an artistic actuality, yet one that is not completed in them in the first instance, but perfected on the basis of discipline conforming to reasoning, and as the perception of the musician has an actuality that can grasp what is in tune and what is out of tune, and this is not self-grown but comes about on the basis of reasoning, so also the scientific perception partakes of its scientific practice as naturally derived from the account, leading to the unerring discrimination of the subjects.
The use of the word ‘scientific’ should not lead one away from the main point: it translates a word that means ‘pertaining to knowledge’, and Speusippus is claiming that there is knowledge at the level of perceived objects. There is no indication that he gave up his holism at this point. So he seems to be committed to defending a rather drastic position.
And he seems to have pursued knowledge at the level of perceived objects with considerable zeal. We have book-titles such as Definitions and Likes in which Speusippus apparently attempted with some zeal to locate various species of plants and animals on something like a division-tree, although the details are not extant. What we hear about Speusippus’ efforts is, for example:
MARSHWORTS: Speusippus in book II of Likes says they grow in water, their leaf resembling marsh celery. (Athenaeus II 61c; Gulick 1927 pp. 266, 267.)
Speusippus in the Likes calls the melon a ‘gourd’. (Athenaeus II 68e; Gulick 1927 pp. 298, 299.)
Speusippus in book II of Likes says that trumpet-shells, purple-fish, snails, and clams are similar. … Again, Speusippus enumerates next in order, in a separate division, clams, scallops, mussels, pinnas, razorfish, and in another class oysters, limpets. (Athenaeus III 86c,d; Gulick 1927 pp. 372, 273.)
Speusippus in book II of Likes says that, of the soft-shells, the crayfish, lobster, mollusc, bear-crab, crab, paguros are similar. (Athenaeus III 105b; Gulick 1927 pp. 450, 451.)
There are a total of twenty-five such citations in Athenaeus. Most simply record that Speusippus said one organism was like another (as with the last two), or simply record differences of terminology that happened to catch Athenaeus’ eye (as with the second one). The only one that promises anything more is the first one above, and that hardly promises much. But it has been supposed (see Tarán 1981) that it implies that Speusippus differentiated species of animals on the basis of features that would not have counted as differentiae in Aristotle’s way of classifying animals: differences of locale. And it is certainly possible that Speusippus’ holism involved a rejection of Aristotle’s essence-accident distinction: if we take the text quoted above from Aristotle as implying that someone who knows marshworts must know every respect in which they are like or unlike every other organism in the universe, and every such differentiating feature is as good as any other in defining them, then we have abandoned the project of differentiating organisms as it appeared to Aristotle.
This line of thought has suggested to some (see Tarán 1981) that the criticism of the Method of Division in Aristotle’s Parts of Animals I 2–3 constitutes a criticism of Speusippus. This possibility remains highly controversial.
It appears from Simplicius’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories (Kalbfleisch 1907 38.19–24) that Speusippus applied his method of division, however it worked, to language: there we hear of a division of terms even more elaborate than Aristotle’s in the opening chapter of the Categories: there we hear of homonyms, synonyms, and paronyms, but Speusippus differentiated between tautonyms (uses of the same term), within which there are homonyms (same term but different definitions) and synonyms (same term and same definition), and heteronyms (different terms), within which there are heteronyms proper (different names, different things), polyonyms (many names, the same thing), and paronyms (as in Aristotle: different terms and different things, with one term derivative from another, as ‘courageous’ and ‘courage’). Whether this classification was not only more elaborate than Aristotle’s, but also had a different basis (that in Aristotle being a classification of things according to how they are referred to, that in Speusippus being a classification of terms themselves), is in dispute (Barnes 1971, Tarán 1978).
Finally, we know a little bit about Speusippus’ attitude toward the epistemology of mathematics. Assuming that Aristotle in Metaphysics XIV 3. 1090a25–29, 35-b1 is discussing Speusippus (he is talking about “those who say there is only the mathematical number”), Speusippus held that the truths of mathematics are not about perceptible things, and that the axioms from which they follow “fawn on the soul”: that is, perhaps, suggest themselves. And Proclus tells us this (Commentary on Book I of Euclid’s Elements, Friedlein 1873 p. 179.8–22; Morrow 1970 p. 141):
For universally, Speusippus says, of the things for which the understanding is making a hunt, some it puts forward without having made an elaborate excursion, and sets them up for the investigation to come: it has a clearer contact with these, even more than sight has with visible things; but with others, which it is unable to grasp straight off, but against which it makes its strides by inference, it tries to effect their capture along the lines of what follows.
So we begin from some sort of intuition by which the axioms suggest themselves and proceed from them to the rest of the mathematical truths.
We also hear from Proclus of a dispute in the Academy between some, whom we might call ‘constructivists’, who saw mathematics as something like a human construct, and referred to the truths of geometry as ‘problems’, demanding geometrical constructions, and others, whom we might think of as ‘mathematical realists’, who saw mathematics as describing an eternal, unchanging realm of objects, and referred to the truths of mathematics as ‘theorems’ or ‘objects of contemplation’. Proclus says (Friedlein 1873 pp. 77.15–78.6; Morrow 1970 pp. 63–64):
But already among the ancients, some demanded that we call all of the things that follow from the principles theorems, as did Speusippus, Amphinomus, and those around them, thinking that for the theoretical branches of knowledge the appellation ‘theorems’ was more appropriate than ‘problems’, especially in that they make their accounts about eternal things. For there is no coming-to-be among the eternal things, so that the problem could have no place with them, it requiring a coming-to-be and making of that which was not before, e.g. constructing an equilateral triangle or describing a square when a line is given, or placing a line at a given point. So they say it is better to say that all these things are, but that we look at their comings-to-be not by way of producing them but by way of knowing them, treating the things that always are as if they were coming-to-be.
So Speusippus, as we might have predicted from the foregoing, was firmly in the realist camp.
Speusippus certainly wrote about ethics: the bibliography in Diogenes lists (in iv 4) one book each on wealth, pleasure, justice, and friendship. But we have nothing that can be properly called a fragment.
We have already seen that Speusippus rejected Plato’s Theory of Forms, and that he refused to place the good among the metaphysical first principles. So he was not obviously prone to the objections of Aristotle against Platonic ethics in Nicomachean Ethics I 6, the general upshot of which is that Plato’s theory puts the Good out of human reach.
Speusippus appears to have adopted a rather down-to-earth goal, and in this he is a lead-in to Hellenistic concerns. Hellenistic ethics is dominated by the identification of the ideal of human happiness as ‘undisturbedness’ (ataraxia). According to Clement, Stromata II 22, 133 (Stählin 1939 p. 186.19–23):
Speusippus, Plato’s nephew, says that happiness is the completed state in things that hold by nature, or possession of goods, for which condition all men have desire, while the good ones aim at untroubledness (aochlesia). And the excellences are productive of happiness.
These formulations ‘anticipate’ Stoic and Epicurean ones: the emphasis on ‘natural’ conditions is a feature of Stoicism, and the notion of ‘untroubledness’ is found in Epicurus (see To Menoeceus, in Diogenes Laertius x 127).
There is an argument implicit in the clause “for which all men have desire, while the good ones aim at untroubledness” that fits in perfectly with a debate about the good and happiness that we know from Aristotle to have been current in the Academy, and in which Speusippus played a leading role. Nicomachean Ethics X 2 begins (1172b9–10):
Eudoxus, then, thought pleasure to be the good because he saw all things, both rational and irrational, aiming at it, ….
This sort of ‘Universal Pursuit Argument’ is one that became very popular in the Hellenistic period; here we have Eudoxus applying it in favor of the claim that pleasure is the good: ‘hedonism’. And Speusippus strenuously denied hedonism (see below).
We might, then, see Speusippus responding to the Universal Pursuit Argument construed as favoring hedonism by saying: we should not care about what all things in general aim at, but at what human beings aim at, in fact, more specifically, the good ones among them, and what human beings pursue is not pleasure, but the completed state in things that hold by nature, and the good ones, more specifically, pursue untroubledness. The word ‘untroubledness’, aochlesia, comes from a verb ochleein that can just mean ‘to move’, so untroubledness might well suggest a certain stillness, lack of motion. This will fit with Speusippus’ views on pleasure and pain.
Before we turn to those, we have a little more with which to flesh out Speusippus’ idea of the good for man; none of it, regrettably, is supplied with argument.
Cicero, in various places, ascribes a view to “Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon” which he himself rejects. In the Tusculan Disputations he enumerates (V x 29) various things such as poverty, ingloriousness, loneliness, pain, ill health, etc., which many people (but not he: his own view is the Stoic one that virtue all by itself guarantees happiness) take to be bad things, and then says (V x 30, King 1927 pp. 454/455–456/457):
Therefore I do not easily give in to … those ancients, Aristotle, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon, since they count the things I have enumerated above among the bad things, and these very people say that the wise man is always happy.
Cicero is, in the last clause, accusing these people of inconsistency: they think the wise man is always happy, and yet they think there are things such as wealth and health the lack of which would bring about unhappiness.
Seneca (Epistulae morales 85.18, Reynolds 1965 i 292, Gummere 1920 pp. 294, 295) says:
Xenocrates and Speusippus think that one can become happy even by virtue alone, but not that there is one good, that is morality (honestum).
This can be seen as expressive of the same reservation Cicero had. If Speusippus and Xenocrates espoused the view that the virtuous man was always happy but thought that there were non-moral evils such as poverty and pain, then they thought that there were non-moral good things as well: the absence of poverty and the absence of pain. So (on Cicero’s and Seneca’s account) they were not consistent in maintaining that virtue (which incorporates only moral goods) was sufficient for happiness.
And it appears that Speusippus and Xenocrates did think that there were non-moral goods; Plutarch, in De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos 13. 1065a (Cherniss 1976 pp. 704, 705) refers to Speusippus and Xenocrates as “thinking that health is not indifferent and wealth not useless”.
We are left with two views to ascribe to Speusippus (and to Xenocrates): that wisdom, or virtue in general, is sufficient for happiness, and that there are non-moral goods the lack of which conduces to unhappiness. Cicero’s question as to how these can be rendered consistent is a good one, and we have no information about how Speusippus might have answered it.
Let us turn to the one other topic about which we have some purchase on Speusippus’ ethical views: that of pleasure. Aulus Gellius, Atticae noctes IX v 4 (Marshall 1968 p. 284, Rolfe 1927 pp. 168, 169):
Speusippus and the entire old Academy say that pleasure and pain are two evils opposed to each other, but that the good is what is in the middle between the two.
The inclusion of the rest of the Academy along with Speusippus is presumably due to the influence of Cicero’s teacher Antiochus’ unifying efforts. At any rate, there is confirmation that this was Speusippus’ view, from two passages in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: VII 13, which names Speusippus, and X 2. 1173a5–13, which does not, but repeats the argument of the former passage.
In the first of those chapters (in 1153b1–7) Aristotle mentions Speusippus as having attacked the claim that pleasure is something good. He had canvassed arguments to the effect that pleasure is a bad thing earlier in the chapter, and some of the arguments certainly sound like Speusippus (1152b12–20):
And so, in favor of the claim that pleasure is not a good at all, it is argued (1) that every pleasure is a perceptible coming-to-be toward a natural state, while no coming-to-be is of the same kind as its ends, e.g. no house-building is of the same kind as a house. (2) Again, the temperate man avoids pleasures. (3) Again, the intelligent man pursues what is painless, not what is pleasant. (4) Again, pleasures are a hindrance to reflecting, and by as much as one enjoys them, by that much are they more of a hindrance, as with the pleasure of sex; for no one could think in the course of that. (5) Again, there is no art of pleasure, although everything good is the work of an art. (6) Again, children and wild animals pursue pleasures.
Assuming that we correctly understood Speusippus’ response to the Universal Pursuit Argument, (2), (3), and (6) are consonant with that response.
But (1) plainly echoes material in Plato’s Philebus (see esp. 53c–55a). And that leads to the interesting suggestion that in that dialogue Plato is entering the dispute between Eudoxus and Speusippus. It has been suggested independently of that passage that Speusippus is lurking behind the ‘harsh thinkers’, the anti-hedonists, of 44a-47b (Schofield 1971, Dillon 1996).
If that is right, and if Graeser’s suggestion that Plato in the Parmenides is responding to some of Speusippus’ metaphysical views, it is plain that the understanding of some of what is going on in late Plato would be aided by an understanding of what was going on in Speusippus. The loss of his writings is regrettable indeed.
- Athenaeus: see Gulick 1927.
- Barnes, Jonathan, 1971, “Homonymy in Speusippus and Aristotle”, Classical Quarterly, 21: 65–80.
- Bury, R.G., 1935, Sextus Empiricus, 4 volumes, Against the Logicians (Volume II), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Greek with facing English translation.
- Cherniss, Harold, 1976, Plutarch’s Moralia, vol. xiii part ii: 1033A–1086B, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Greek with facing English translation.
- Cicero (see King 1927).
- Clement (see Stählin 1939).
- Dancy, R.M., 1989, “Ancient Non-Beings: Speusippus and Others”, Ancient Philosophy, 9: 207–243; revised reprint in R.M. Dancy, 1991, Two Studies in the Early Academy, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 63–119, 146–178. More detailed discussion of Speusippus’ metaphysics.
- De Falco, V., 1975, [Iamblichus:] Theologumena arithmeticae, U. Klein (ed.), Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner.
- Dillon, John, 1984, “Speusippus in Iamblichus”, Phronesis, 29(3): 325–332.
- –––, 1996, “Speusippus on Pleasure”, in Polyhistor: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ancient Philosophy Presented to Jaap Mansfeld on His Sixtieth Birthday [Philosophia Antiqua 72], Keimpe A. Algra, Pieter W. van der Horst, & David T. Runia (eds.), Leiden & New York: E.J. Brill, 99–114.
- –––, 2003, The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–274 B.C.), Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
- Diogenes Laertius (see Hicks 1925, Marcovich 1999).
- D’Ooge, Martin Luther, Frank Edleston Robbins, & Louis Charles Karpinski, 1926, Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic, New York & London: Macmillan.
- Döring, A., 1903, “Eudoxos von Knidos, Speusippos, und der Dialog Philebos”, Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie und Soziologie, 27: 113–129.
- Euclid (see Heiberg/Stamatis 1970, Heath, 1926).
- Falcon, Andrea, 2000, “Aristotle, Speusippus, and the Platonic Method of Division”, Classical Quarterly, 50: 402–414.
- Festa, N., 1975, Iamblichus: De communi mathematica scientia, U. Klein (ed.), Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner.
- Friedlein, G., 1873, Procli Diadochi in primum Euclidis Elementorum commentarii, Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
- Gellius, Aulus (see Marshall 1968, Rolfe 1927).
- Graeser, Andreas, 1997, “Platon gegen Speusipp: Bemerkungen zur ersten Hypothese des Platonischen Parmenides”, Museum Helveticum, 54: 45–47.
- –––, 1999, “Anhang: Probleme der Speusipp-Interpretation”, Prolegomena zu einer Interpretation des zweiten Teils des Platonischen Parmenides [Berner Reihe philosophischer Studien 25], Bern, etc.: Verlag Paul Haupt, 41–53.
- Gulick, Charles Burton, 1927, Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists, vol. i: Books I-III.106e, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Greek with facing English translation.
- Gummere, Richard M., 1920, Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae morales, vol. ii, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Latin with facing English translation.
- Halfwassen, Jens, 1992, “Speusipp und die Unendlichkeit des Einen: Ein neues Speusipp-Testimonium bei Proklos und seine Bedeutung”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 74: 43–73.
- –––, 1993, “Speusipp und die metaphysische Deutung von Platons ‘Parmenides’”, in HEN KAI PLETHOS / Einheit und Vielheit: Festschrift für Karl Bormann zum 65. Geburtstag [Religionswissenschafliche Studien 30], Ludwig Hagemann & Reinhold Glei (eds.), Echter: Oros Verlag, 330–373.
- Heath, Thomas L., 1926, Euclid: The Thirteen Books of the Elements, vol. ii, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Heiberg, J.L., 1970, Euclidis Elementa, vol. ii, E.S. Stamatis (ed.), Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
- Hicks, R.D., 1925, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 2 vols., Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Greek with facing English translation.
- Hoche, R., 1866, Nicomachi Geraseni Pythagorei Introductionis arithmeticae libri II, Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
- Iamblichus (see De Falco 1975, Festa 1975).
- Isnardi Parente, Margherita, 1980, Speusippo: Frammenti; Edizione, traduzione e commento [Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, La Scuola di Platone 1], Naples: Bibliopolis; the only edition of the fragments with a translation (Italian).
- Kaklamanou, Eleni, 2012, “Speusippus on Cognitive Sense Perception: Sextus Empiricus M 7.145-6”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 20: 1183–1193.
- Kalbfleisch, C., 1907, Simplicii in Aristotelis Categorias commentarium [Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 8], Berlin: G. Reimer.
- King, J.E., 1927, Cicero: Tusculan Disputations, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Latin with facing English translation.
- Krämer, Hans Joachim, 1969, “EPEKEINA TES OUSIAS: Zu Platon, Politeia 509B”, Archiv för Geschichte der Philosophie, 51: 1–30. (Defends the view of this passage rejected above.)
- Lang, Paul, 1911, De Speusippi academici scriptis accedunt fragmenta, Bonn; reprint, Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1965.
- Marcovich, Miroslav, 1999, Diogenis Laertii Vitae philosophorum, 2 vols., Stuttgart & Leipzig: B.G. Teubner.
- Marshall, P.K., 1968, A. Gellii Noctes Atticae, vol. i, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Merlan, Philip, 1968, “Speusippus in Iamblichus”, in Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 3rd edition, 96–140.
- Morrow, Glenn R., 1970, Proclus: A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
- Nicomachus (see Hoche 1866, D’Ooge et al. 1926).
- Plutarch (see Cherniss 1976).
- Proclus (see Friedlein 1873, Morrow 1970).
- Reynolds, L.D., 1965, L. Annaei Senecae: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, 2 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press. Latin text.
- Rolfe, John C., 1927, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, vol. ii, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.; Loeb Classical Library: Latin with facing English translation.
- Schofield, M., 1971, “Who Were the Dyschereis in Plato, Philebus 44a ff.?”, Museum Helveticum, 28: 2–20.
- Seneca (see Gummere 1920, Reynolds 1965).
- Sextus Empiricus (see Bury 1935).
- Simplicius (see Kalbfleisch 1907).
- Stählin, Otto, 1939, Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. ii, Stromata, Buch I-VI, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs.
- Stobaeus (see Wachsmuth & Hense 1884).
- Tarán, Leonardo, 1978, “Speusippus and Aristotle on Homonymy and Synonymy”, Hermes, 106: 73–99.
- –––, 1981, Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary [Philosophia Antiqua 39], Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981. An indispensible edition of the fragments, with commentary in English but no translation (not for the Greekless reader). Tarán heatedly denies many of the positions taken here: esp., e.g., that the One does not exist and that Iamblichus, DCMS iv, quotes or paraphrases Speusippus. On both these points, see Dillon 1984, Dancy 1989/1991.
- Tarrant, H.A.S., 1974, “Speusippus’ Ontological Classification”, Phronesis, 19: 130–145.
- Wachsmuth, Curt, & Otto Hense, 1884, Stobaei Anthologium, vol. i: Eclogae physicae, Berlin: Weidmann.
- Warren, James, 2009, “Aristotle on Speusippus on Eudoxus on pleasure”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 36: 249–81.
- Waterfield, Robin, 1988, The Theology of Arithmetic, Attributed to Iamblichus, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Phanes Press.
- Watts, Edward, 2007, “Creating the Academy: Historical Discourse and the Shape of Community in the Old Academy”, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 127: 106–122.
How to cite this entry. Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society. Look up this entry topic at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers, with links to its database.
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- 2-1 Introduction
- 2-2 Background Research
- 2-3 Issue Identification/Scoping
- 2-4 Field Survey Methods
- 2-5 Evaluating Effects and Providing Input on Significance
- 2-6 Mitigation Measures
A Natural Environment Study (NES) describes the existing biological environment and how the project alternatives affect that environment. The NES summarizes technical documents (e.g., focused species studies, wetland assessments, biological assessments, etc.) related to effects on biological resources in the Biological Study Area (BSA) for use in the environmental document.
To gather information on the biological resources in the BSA, the District Biologist must review the proposed project description and materials, be familiar with the BSA, consider comments received during the project scoping process, and review existing sources of information known about the BSA.
An initial site visit to observe the type of natural communities and their condition in the BSA will help focus the collection of background information. Background information is used to plan the extent of biological studies needed prior to conducting field investigations. This initial planning step is necessary to ensure that studies address resources of concern that may be affected by the project while at the same time avoiding lengthy discussions of the local or regional biota. Biological resources addressed in the NES are limited to those pertaining to the BSA and those likely to be effected by the project. The BSA limits are determined in coordination with the Project Development Team (PDT) (refer to section 2-3.2).
The District Biologist reviews substantive resource issues identified during the project scoping process before initiating biological studies. From the information obtained in the background research and the comments received during the scoping process, the District Biologist develops a list of sensitive species and habitats that may be present within the BSA, as well as records of any additional biological considerations, such as the presence of invasive species.
Information about biological resources in the BSA is available from a myriad of sources. Some of the common sources of biological information include:
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
- Endangered Species Program provides special status species information
- Threatened and Endangered Species Database (TESS) provides species lists and information
- National Wetlands Inventory Maps allows you to view wetlands maps using a mapping interface
- Survey Protocols and Other Guidelines for federally listed, threatened, endangered species
- California Department of Fish and Game (DFG)
- Status of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants and Animals of California 2000-2004
- Rare Plant Program coordinates conservation activities for the State's listed plants, including listing, plant collecting, and research
- Protocols for Surveying and Evaluating Impacts
- Vegetation Classification and Mapping Program (VegCAMP) develops and maintains maps and the classification of all vegetation and habitats in the state to support conservation and management decisions
- California Natural Diversity Data Base (CNDDB) is a program that inventories the status and locations of rare plants and animals in California
- Survey and Monitoring Protocols and Guidelines contains specified survey protocols for plants, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
- More Common Sources:
- California Native Plant Society's (CNPS) Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California provides information on the distribution and habitat requirements of sensitive plant taxa
- California Native Plant Society’s (CNPS) A Manual of California Vegetation has been adopted as the standard vegetation classification system used by state and federal agencies
- Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides a listing of soil surveys and maps
- California Department of Food and Agriculture (USDA) provides a state noxious weed list
- California Invasive Plant Council (CalIPC) protects California wild lands from invasive plants through restoration, research, and education, and maps the distribution of invasive plant populations
Environmental documents prepared for nearby projects and documents prepared by resource agencies concerning species potentially found in the study area are also helpful informational resources. A 10-mile radius from the project site normally provides a useful frame of reference for developing a list of sensitive taxa to be considered during project studies. As a rule, the biologist considers all species whose range includes the BSA and whose life requirements may be met by the habitat and vegetation that is present within the survey area.
The scoping process identifies many of the issues that require discussion in an environmental document. The District Biologist supplements this process on an as needed basis, with site visits and interviews with local experts and agency personnel familiar with sensitive resources potentially found in the BSA.
The level of detail must be sufficient to determine if the project will result in any considerable effects. The NES describes the project setting in detail that project planners and the public have a clear idea of the nature, distribution, and abundance of resources. The NES must address whether a sensitive or biologically important resource occurs in the BSA, whether the resource will be affected, and whether the project effects are considerable.
As the sensitivity of the resource increases, the level of detail in the NES will also increase. Rare, threatened and endangered species, as well as proposed species, candidate species, and some special status resources require a thorough analysis of potential project effects. A determination of the potential for take of a listed species or critical habitat is required.
The District Biologist coordinates with the PDT to develop the limits of the BSA. A BSA includes the footprint of the completed project, new right-of-way (ROW) limits, areas needed for utility relocation, construction access roads, driveway realignments, and construction easements. Within these limits the biologist evaluates biological resources for both direct and indirect effects. If effects resulting from the project extend beyond the project limits, the effected areas must be included in the analysis
Area of Direct Effect. The area of direct effect is where construction activity results in the removal of biotic resources and landforms. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Regulations define direct effects as those "which are caused by the action and occur at the same time and place." Resources lost under the footprint of the action are obvious direct effects, such as filling a wetland to build a highway. Less obvious direct effects might be where a natural process has been blocked, such as blocking a migration corridor or disrupting a breeding cycle.
Area of Indirect Effect. As defined in the NEPA Regulations, indirect effects are those "which are caused by the action and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but are still reasonably foreseeable. Indirect effects may include growth inducing effects and other effects related to induced changes in the pattern of land use, population density or growth rate, and related effects on air and water, and other natural systems, including ecosystems."
When evaluating an action for indirect social effects, the District Biologist coordinates with the Environmental Planner to determine indirect social changes that may occur from the construction of a project. The environmental planner determines probable changes likely to occur in the BSA. The District Biologist evaluates the biological resources that will be affected because of these indirect social effects.
Area of Cumulative Effect A cumulative effect is defined in the NEPA Regulations as "the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative effects can result from individually minor yet collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time."
Effects definitions for FESA and CESA may vary from the NEPA definition. Chapter 4 provides more detail on these definitions.
Throughout the development of the NES, the District Biologist contacts individuals and agencies for information or negotiation purposes. A section within the NES discusses the coordination that has taken place and agreements that have been made. Contacts are made primarily to gather information or to negotiate modifications in the project design.
Information. As needed, the District Biologist will interview individuals who are familiar with the biological resources of the BSA, including local agency and academic personnel who are experts on the biota of the study area. These experts may provide additional, unpublished information regarding the distribution and importance of resources within the BSA. A District Biologist should attend the project's public information meetings and workshops to establish contacts with property owners. Property owners can supply knowledge of prior and current land uses and the ecological character of the area.
Negotiation. These contacts are established for the purpose of project modification to avoid or lessen an effect on biological resources. These negotiations typically involve State, Federal, and local agencies. The Project Manager is responsible for determining any project obligations. Negotiation meetings are frequently followed with a letter confirming the final agreements. This process is referred to as consultation when threatened or endangered species are involved. Chapter 4 in Volume III, Endangered Species Act Procedure, discusses this process in detail.
Prior to conducting field surveys, the District Biologist compiles lists of potential sensitive resources as well as other biological considerations, such as invasive species, likely to occur within the vicinity of the BSA. The limits of the project are known and delineated on project plans and/or aerial photos. If possible, the area is surveyed and delineated with survey markers or flagging.
Biological field surveys are conducted to obtain information needed to determine the project's level of effects, including consideration of long-term and short-term effects, and the cumulative effects of the project on the biota in the area. Prior to collecting biological data, the District Biologist formulates questions and issues that need to be investigated during the field surveys. Pertinent questions include:
- What is the significance of the effected resources on a local or regional scale?
- What is the rarity or abundance of the resource in the region and elsewhere?
- What is the resilience of the resource?
- Are there invasive species currently in the BSA and will the action promote the spread of invasive species?
In some cases, where species require a specific survey method protocol or survey permit, it will be necessary to coordinate with resource agencies to obtain approval of the field survey methodology.
The District Biologist walks the project study area to develop an accurate description of the BSA, determines the presence of sensitive habitats and species, observes for any invasive species present, and evaluates the effects of the proposed project on the BSA. All field surveys to determine the presence of special status species (any species of fish, wildlife, or plant that is officially listed as rare, threatened, endangered, or candidate for rare, threatened, or endangered species listing under the state or federal Endangered Species Acts, or of local importance) are conducted at the appropriate blooming or active period for each resource. A determination of the presence of some sensitive resources may require sampling over more than one season. Some listed species require handling in order to determine their presence in the project vicinity. The District Biologist must obtain the required permits for handling these species or hire a qualified consultant who possesses the required permits prior to conducting the field surveys.
If the BSA is too large to adequately survey, the District Biologist will use aerial photos and maps to investigate the total area. The biologist then conducts meandering transects that traverse the BSA, being sure to investigate areas of potential sensitivity found from the pre-survey information search and aerial photo interpretation.
Field safety is extremely important when conducting field surveys. It is the responsibility of the District Biologist to become familiar with Caltrans’ Safety Manual and Surveys Manual. For example, as discussed in the Surveys Manual biologists must use the buddy system during field surveys, as well as provide a trip itinerary or study plan to their supervisor, wear appropriate clothing, and consider other safety precautions.
Guidelines were set forth May 22, 2002, in a memorandum signed by Caltrans’ Right of Way, Environmental and Legal programs which describe the responsibilities Right of Way and Environmental Planning & Engineering have in obtaining permission to enter upon property (see Policy Related Memos; Right of Entry Guidelines for Environmental Work). The guidelines require written permission from the property owner in situations where the work performed could be considered to cause substantial interference or be invasive or damaging in nature, ie., boring, trenches, digging with hand tools, cutting vegetation, or any activities affecting any site improvements. However, an informational letter may be sent to the property owner in those situations where entry does not interfere with the property owner’s use, or is clearly non-invasive in nature, such as walk-on visual inspections, taking photographs, etc. The letter will inform the owner or lessee of the purpose and effect of such entry together with the approximate time of the entry and further advise the property owner or lessee to contact an identified person only if they have objections to such entry or have specific instructions they wish to have observed during such entry (personal contact before entering, closing livestock gates, instructions concerning dogs, etc.). It is important that the District Biologist coordinate with the District ROW Unit for assistance to determine any actions that might be necessary prior to survey work on private property. Obtaining Rights of Entry (ROE) could be a time consuming process and it is important that requests for ROE be coordinated in the initial planning phases of the project. Environmental and Right of Way staffs are encouraged to work together to make this process successful.
The District Biologist maps the survey area as early as possible during field investigations to provide base maps for subsequent biological work and a preliminary assessment of effects. Mapping should be at a scale large enough to show vegetation types and important biological features such as habitat for sensitive species, wetlands unique plant assemblages, and the presence of state listed noxious species. Vegetation community map units must be selected on the basis of a recognized classification system and referenced appropriately in the NES. The current standard for vegetation classification is “A Manual of California Vegetation” published by the California Native Plant Society in conjunction with DFG. This manual should be used as a basis for the habitat descriptions and the vegetation map. If another vegetation classification system is used, the report must reference the system and provide the justification for its use.
District Biologists should use a combination of aerial photo interpretation and ground truthing to delineate vegetation types. Descriptive information for each mapping unit includes the distribution of the unit within the study area, an estimate of total acreage, the dominant plant species, and the relative sensitivity of the vegetation type. All plant and animal taxa encountered during site visits should be listed by vegetation type in an appendix to the NES. The biologist will identify each species observed to the extent necessary to determine whether it is threatened or endangered. In addition to identifying species, the biologist will identify natural communities whose status is being tracked by the CNDDB.
There may be times when it is appropriate for a biologist to do more than map and calculate the area of the vegetation communities in a BSA. A biologist may need to develop a detailed discussion of communities in the BSA when communities of state or local significance, such as oak woodlands or wetlands, will be effected. Information on the degree of canopy cover, tree density, species frequency, and functions and values of specific habitats may be necessary in order to evaluate and develop mitigation. Collecting a greater level of detail will assist the biologist in developing mitigation that appropriately offsets the project effects. By discussing effects to these vegetation communities in greater detail within the NES, any associated mitigation costs or project scheduling adjustments can be included in the early planning stages of the project. Investigation of specific habitat or community characteristics will help ensure that proposed mitigation matches project effects.
Caltrans biologists identify, delineate, and discuss effects to riparian and aquatic communities, including rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and other waters of the United States to satisfy the requirements of Executive Order 11990, Section 10, of the Rivers and Harbors Act (33 U.S.C. 401 et seq.), Section 404 and Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. 1251-1376), National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (16 U.S.C. 1271-1287), NEPA, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Sections 1601-1603 of the Fish and Game Code, and the California Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (P.R.C.5093.50 et seq).
Streams, Rivers, and Lakes. Caltrans is required to notify DFG prior to any project that would divert, obstruct, or change the natural flow, bed, channel, or bank of any river, stream, or lake under Sections 1602 of the Fish and Game Code. Preliminary notification and project review generally occurs during the environmental process. When an existing fish or wildlife resource may be adversely affected, DFG is required to propose reasonable project changes to protect the resource. These modifications are formalized in a Streambed Alteration Agreement (e.g. 1602 agreement). The District Biologist must identify in the NES those areas that may pertain to Section 1602 of the Fish and Game Code.
Wetlands and Other Waters of the United States. As discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3 of Volume III, Waters of the U.S. and the State, to determine the presence of a wetland, the District Biologist uses the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) joint definition: "Those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions." Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas.
A District Biologist will use the procedures described in the USACE Wetlands Delineation Manual (January 1987) to make the wetland determination. The wetland determination requires the identification of three criteria:
- Presence of wetland hydrology;
- Hydric soils; and
- A prevalence of hydrophytic vegetation. An in-depth discussion of wetland identification and report format is included in Chapter 3 of Volume III, Wetlands.
When wetlands occur in the BSA, the NES will include a Wetland Assessment. The purpose of an assessment is to map the wetland area and discuss the functions, values, and potential effects on wetlands. For most projects, the discussion of wetland issues is included entirely within the NES. In cases where the discussion of wetland issues is lengthy and/or project effects are significant, a separate Wetland Assessment will be prepared, summarized within the NES, and included in the NES as a technical appendix.
Federally funded projects must abide by Federal Executive Order 11990, - Protection of Wetlands (May 24, 1977), which directs "all Federal agencies to refrain from assisting in or giving financial support to projects which encroach upon public or private wetlands unless the agency determines there are no practicable alternatives to such construction and that the proposed action includes all practicable measures to minimize harm." In accordance with Executive Order 11990, federally funded projects must provide an opportunity for early public involvement for all actions involving wetlands. For actions requiring a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), notices for a public hearing and notices of availability must indicate whether alternatives are located in wetlands. A Wetlands Finding is necessary for actions requiring a FONSI or EIS. Federal Highway Technical Advisory T 6640.8A (October 30, 1987) provides guidance for addressing wetland effects. Guidelines for compliance with these requirements are discussed in Chapter 3 of Volume III, Waters of the U.S. and State.
Botanical surveys are conducted to determine effects of a proposed project on rare, threatened, and endangered plants, natural communities, as well as risks for invasive species. Caltrans follows the DFG "Protocols for Surveying and Evaluating Impacts to Special Status Native Plant Populations and Natural Communities."
The purpose of these protocols is to facilitate a consistent and systematic approach to the survey and assessment of special status native plants and natural communities so that reliable information is produced and the potential of locating a special status plant species or natural community is maximized. This universal understanding of the quality and methods is accepted broadly by experts and resource agency reviewers.
Executive Order (E.O.) 13112 signed February 3, 1999 requires Executive agencies to work cooperatively to prevent and control the spread of invasive plants and animals. This E.O. was followed by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Guidance on Invasive Species dated August 10, 1999. On October 22, 1999, Caltrans issued a memo to implement the FHWA guidance (found in SER Policy Memo Section). The Guidance states that FHWA will not give final NEPA compliance for an action unless appropriate analysis of the probability of the action to cause or promote the introduction or spread of invasive species has been accomplished. If analysis indicates that the disturbances caused by the action have the potential to promote the introduction or spread of invasive species, all feasible and prudent measures taken to minimize this likelihood will be identified.
According to the Guidance, it is required that Caltrans use the state noxious weed list to define invasive plants until such time as a National List is developed. The National Invasive Species Council was established in 2001 and maintains a collection of databases related to invasive species throughout the country. This database source has taken the place of a “national list” and should be used in the evaluation of invasive species in the BSA.
Given the variety and number of wildlife species and types of habitats found in California, it is impossible to present all of the techniques for surveying each species and type of habitat. As mentioned previously, all wildlife surveys are conducted during a species active period, such as nesting or migration. In cases when surveys must be conducted at times that animals are less likely to be observed, a thorough investigation of the animal's potential habitat should be made. Investigations and careful record keeping should report the presence (e.g., tracks, scat, nests or dens, trails, or any other indicators) that are specific to the animal. The surveys for wildlife must be commensurate with the magnitude of the project and the importance of potential effects to the expected resource. Specialized surveys are usually reserved for those instances where a sensitive resource is expected in the BSA. Surveys for many of the species listed as threatened or endangered must follow a specified protocol established by DFG or FWS and may require a permit (e.g., California red-legged frog survey protocol by FWS).
The DFG Survey and Monitoring Protocols and Guidelines contains specified survey protocols for plants, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The protocols and guidelines available are from various sources and are recommended as tested and reviewed methods for their intended purposes. These purposes include determining the presence or support for a negative finding (e.g., habitat not suitable) for a particular species or its local status. In some cases, these protocols and guidelines represent what DFG believes to be the best available methodology. The FWS has issued Survey Protocols and Other Guidelines for federally listed, threatened, endangered species. FWS also maintains a list of plants and animals native to the United States that are candidates or proposed for possible addition to the Federal list, as well as other guidance concerning wildlife survey techniques.
A California Native Species Field Survey Form should be completed and sent to CNDDB when sensitive species are located. The information requested in the survey form includes the location of the species (e.g., county, landowner, GPS location), habitat description (e.g., plant communities, dominants, associates, substrates/soils, aspects/slope), site information (e.g., overall site, occurrence quality/viability, etc.), animal information (e.g., number of adults, juveniles, larvae, etc.), and plant information (e.g., phenology).
A sampling of references that describe wildlife survey techniques is presented. However, this is not an exhaustive list. Protocols for conducting wildlife surveys must be chosen carefully to ensure the results are appropriate for the circumstances. Each biologist must select the methods with which they feel most comfortable.
Brookhout, T. A., editor. 1994. Research and management techniques for wildlife and habitats. The Wildlife Society, Bethesda, MD. 740 pp.
Cooperrider, A. Y., R. J. Boyd, and H. R. Stuart, editors. 1986. Inventory
and Monitoring of Wildlife Habitat.
U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Service Center. Denver, CO., 858 pp.
Davis, D. E. 1990. CRC Handbook of Census Methods for Terrestrial Vertebrates. CRC Press. 375 pp.
Hays, R. L., C. Summers, and W. Seitz. 1981. Estimating Wildlife Habitat
Variables. FWS Report
FWS/OBS- 81/47. 111 pp.
Leedy, D. L. and L. W. Adams. 1982. Wildlife Considerations in Planning and Managing Highway Corridors. FHWA Report. FHWA-TS-82-212. 93 pp.
Meese, Robert J., Shilling, Fraser M., Quinn, James F., and California Department of Transportation,
Environmental Division, supervised by Amy Pettler. 2007. Wildlife Crossings Guidance Manual and associated Wildlife Crossings Website.
Nathanson, J. A., M. Lanzafama, and P. Kissam. 2006. Surveying Fundamentals and Practices, 5/E.
Prentice Hall. 512 pp.
Ralph, C. J., G.R. Geupel, P. Pyle, T.E. Martin, and D.F. DeSante. 1993.
Handbook of Field Methods for
Monitoring Land Birds. Pacific Southwest Research Station Report. PSW-GTR-144. 41 pp.
Technical documents do not include the “determinations of significance,” rather the District Biologist evaluates the effects of the project on the biotic resources in the BSA and reports them in the technical documents. This evaluation of the direct and indirect effects (as discussed in Section 2-3.2), the long-term and/or short-term effects, and the cumulative effects resulting from the project are used by the PDT in the determination of significance to report in the Environmental Document.
Per NEPA guidelines, effects are evaluated by assessing the context and intensity. Context and intensity are defined by the CEQ Regulations (see Vol. 1 of the SER).
CEQA Guidelines has similar approaches to determine the level of effects.
A brief synopsis of mitigation is discussed in this chapter as it pertains to the NES. A detailed discussion can be found in Chapter 5 of Volume III, Mitigation and Monitoring.
The District Biologist takes the lead in developing and implementing biological mitigation measures for the proposed action. Only mitigation measures approved by Caltrans management in conjunction with the resource agencies requesting the measures will be discussed in the mitigation section of the NES. All approved mitigation measures are included in the environmental documents. Recommendations from consultants concerning mitigation measures and significance will not be included in the NES, but are discussed in the Official Memo transmitting the consultant document to the Contract Administrator.
Mitigation development is coordinated with the appropriate resource or regulatory agency (USACE, FWS, DFG, NMFS , Coastal Commission, etc.) and all Caltrans programs affected by the proposed measures. Development of the mitigation plan may involve Design, Construction, Landscape Architecture, Maintenance, Hydraulics, and Environmental.
In some cases the District Biologist must produce a Mitigation Plan, separate from the NES, which outlines measures to avoid, reduce, or offset adverse biological effects associated with transportation projects. This plan will inform personnel associated with the project of the agreed upon mitigation measures, the goals and objectives to be achieved, procedures for their implementation, and practicable monitoring techniques.
Mitigation measures as defined in the CEQ Regulations (40 CFR Part 1508.20) shall include:
- Avoiding the effects altogether by not taking a certain action or parts of an action;
- Minimizing effects by limiting the degree or magnitude of the action and its implementation;
- Rectifying the effects by repairing, rehabilitating, or restoring the effected environment;
- Reducing or eliminating the effects over time by preservation and maintenance operations during the life of the action; and
- Compensating for the effect by replacing or providing substitute resources or environments.
The level of mitigation required will be a consequence of the significance of the effects on the biotic resources.