The Cyclical Argument has defects that have often enough been pointed out. It is better construed as an opening dialectical move than as an argument to which Plato was seriously committed. But it deserves more credit for ingenuity and subtlety than it is usually given. It serves to introduce some of the concepts that will be of central interest, and gives fertile ground for philosophical argument. See, e.g., J. Wolfe, Dialogue 1966,237-8, J. Wolfe and P. W. Gooch, I.A.C.P. ii. 239-44, 251-4, and C. J. F. Williams,Philosophy 1969, 217-30.
70c4—8. To appraise the argument it is essential to keep in mind the different functions of the verb translated 'come to be' or 'be born'. This verb (gignesthai), which is quite unconnected with Greek words for either 'come' or 'be', may be used both with a complement, meaning (1) 'become', and absolutely, meaning either (2) 'come into being' or (3) 'be born'. In uses (1) and (2) it has generally been rendered 'come to be'. The distinction between these is not, indeed, clear-cut, since a subject's coming to possess a property may also be thought of as that property's coming to exist in the subject. Thus 'x comes to be F may also be expressed as *F comes to be (in x)'. The grammar of sentences containing 'come to be' is not always clear—cf.97a—b, 101c, and see notes 58 and 65. In the present argument, when opposites are said to 'come to be' from each other (70e5—6, 71a9—10), it is meant that things come to be characterized by one member of a pair of opposites from having previously been characterized by the other. See 103b 1—c2. Note also that the Greek verb is liable to be misleading in translation, (i) It may be thought that the things in question are 'generated' from distinct sources, as eggs 'come' from hens, or offspring from their parents. In this sense it would not, of course, be true that the living 'come to be from the dead'. Nor would the claim that 'opposites come to be from oppo- sites' have any plausibility as a general principle at all. But this is not Plato's meaning, (ii) The word 'come' may suggest a local point of departure 'from' which the things in question 'arrive'. The argument can, indeed, be represented as exploiting this idea, Hades being thought of as the 'place' where souls begin their journey. But the verb under discussion carries no connotations of the kind suggested by the English 'come'.
The distinction between uses (2) and (3) is also critical for the argument. As applied to the soul, the verb is not generally used as in (2), since the soul is not, on Socrates' view of it, subject to 'coming into being'. Rather, the verb is used to mean that the soul 'is born'. In this use it is frequently linked with talk of the soul's 'entering' the body (cf., e.g., 77dl—2, 95c5—d2). It means, in fact, 'become incarnate'. Thus, in the next few lines (70c8—d2) Socrates will argue that our souls 'could hardly be born again, if they didn't exist'. The translation 'be born' is clearly demanded here. For it could not be argued that 'our souls could hardly come into being again, if they did not exist'.
Note, however, that 'being born' permits inference to an earlier, discarnate existence, only if it is the soul, as distinct from the living thing, that is said to 'be born'. For it is plausible to hold that, for a living thing, its birth, or (where this is distinct) its conception, is its coming into being. An inference from birth or conception to an earlier existence would then be as unwarranted as an inference from its coming into being to an earlier existence. It is only if 'be born' is predicated of the soul, and taken to mean 'be born into a body' or 'become incarnate' that the required inference to an earlier existence can be drawn.
The actual subject of 'be born' varies. Often Socrates will speak simply of 'our' being born (e.g. 76a9, 76e4, 76e6, 77al, 77al0-bl, 77c2). But at critical points (70c8—dl, 72a6—8) he will speak, rather, of 'our souls' being born. At 73a 1—2 the verb is used explicitly to mean 'become incarnate'. Later (83dl0—el) the soul will be said to 'fall back into another body, and grow in it as if sown there'. It is 'bound' or 'imprisoned' in the body (82e2-83al, 83d 1-5, 84a5, 92al, cf.67dl—10). These metaphors sustain a distinction, vital for the argument, between the soul and the living thing that it animates. Yet this use of 'the soul' as subject of 'be born' is logically suspect. For it insinuates a view of 'birth' in which the soul's discarnate existence is already covertly assumed. And since that is precisely what the argument purports to prove, the very concept of incarnation can be seen to beg the essential question.
This central objection to the Cyclical Argument may be restated. Life and existence, it may reasonably be held, both begin for a living thing at birth or conception. Yet the argument treats the predicate 'alive' as- if it stood for an attribute capable of being acquired by an antecedently existing subject, and 'birth' as if it were something undergone by such a subject, rather than the coming into being of something that did not previously exist. A wedge is forced between 'being born' and 'coming into being' by predicating the former of a supposedly independent subject—'the soul'. Yet whether there is any such subject is just what has to be shown.
Much the same applies to the predicate 'dead'. 'That which is dead', says Socrates, 'comes to be from that which is living' (71dl0— 11, 72a5—6). This is, in a way, undeniable. Yet it fails to prove the posthumous existence of that which is dead. For if 'death' consists precisely in a living thing's ceasing to exist, then when someone passes from being alive to being dead, he will not, in the latter state, enjoy discarnate existence, but will have ceased to exist altogether. 'Socrates is dead' does not, on this view, ascribe a property to a persisting subject, but says merely that someone, who once lived and existed, no longer does so. Here again, a wedge might be driven between 'being dead' and 'ceasing to exist' by treating Socrates' soul as a separate subject, distinct from Socrates himself, and alternating between incarnate and discarnate states. But this would be, once again, to assume what has to be proved. See also on 64c2—9.
70c8—d6. Reference is made at 70dl to 'our souls', i.e. the souls of individual human beings. It is not merely 'soul' in a generic sense whose survival is at issue. Nor, again, is it merely a 'universal' or 'cosmic' soul, into which individuals might somehow be 'absorbed' at death. Throughout the dialogue the speakers are concerned with the fate of their own souls (e.g. 63cl-5,69d7-e2, 88b6-8,95d4- el, 115d2—4), and conclusions are continually drawn in terms of those (e.g. 71e2, 76cll, 107al, 114d8). See also on 64e4-65a3 (p.89-90).
Hackforth points out (59, n.2) that if the first part of the 'ancient doctrine'—'that they do exist in that world entering it from this one'—were included as a premiss of the argument, Socrates would be taking for granted the existence of the soul in the other world after death, which is exactly what he has to prove. He thinks, however, that the argument actually rests only upon the second part of the 'ancient doctrine'—'that they re-enter this world and are born again from the dead'. It is true that after 'if this is so' (c8), only the second part of the doctrine is taken up again in the words 'if living people are born again from those who have died' (c8—9). Perhaps, however, the ancient doctrine should be read not as stating the premisses of an argument, but rather as formulating in toto what still has to be proved, that the soul passes alternately from incarnate to discamate existence.