Socrates claims only that unvarying things are 'likely' to be the incomposite. It therefore could not be certain that members of any sub-class of unvarying things, such as Forms or souls, are incomposite. Nor is the basis for the alleged 'likelihood' explained. Perhaps change is thought of as depending upon rearrangement of parts within a complex whole. The characterization of the Forms as incomposite is, indeed, often taken to imply that they are without parts, and therefore incapable of such change. 'Incomposite' may, however, mean merely 'not having been put together', and might thus be ascribed to something that has possessed parts from all eternity. See K. W. Mills, Phronesis 1958, 45—7, answered by R. S. Bluck, Phronesis 1959, 5, and J. M. Rist, Phronesis 1964, 32-3. See also on 80al0-cl.
The question whether Forms can have parts, and if so in what sense, raises the question whether the soul, in virtue of its kinship with the incomposite Forms, is supposed to be without parts, and if so, whether this account of it can be reconciled with the teaching of the Republic and the Phaedrus. See R. W. Hall, Phronesis 1963, 63-82.
For many different ways of understanding 'composite' see Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1,47.
78dl-5. The grammar and sense of the words translated 'the Being itself, whose being we give an account of' (dl—2) are uncertain. 'The Being itself' clearly refers to the domain of Forms (see note 7). But 'giving an account' could mean either 'giving a definition' or 'giving a proof; and the use of 'being' may be either 'incomplete' or 'complete' (see on 65c2—4). 'Giving an account' of a Form's 'being' may therefore mean either 'defining its essential nature' or 'proving that it exists'. Loriaux (152—3, 164—5) defends the existential interpretation. See also E.F.P. 26—34. Similarly Hackforth. For the view adopted here see Bluck and Burnet. The non-existential reading has been preferred, in view of the reference to 'asking and answering questions'—cf.75d2—3. It seems far more natural to associate this with the Socratic quest for definitions than with proofs of the Forms' existence. To 'give an account of the being of F' is to answer the question 'what is F?'. Questioning and answering of this sort are familiar in Plato's writings, and typical of dialectical inquiry (cf., e.gRepublic 538d6—e3), whereas questioning and answering to prove that the Forms exist can hardly be said to occur in the dialogues at all.
The phrase 'what... is' has been translated accordingly at 78d4 and 78d5. See note 31.
78dl0-e5. For the text at 78dl0-el see note 33. At 78e2 Socrates speaks of 'all things that bear the same name as those objects'. 'Those objects' are, of course, the Forms, here treated as the prime bearers of their names. Particulars are 'named after' them. Cf.l02b2, 102cl0, 103b7, and see on 65d4-e5 (p.96), 102al0-d4.
In contrasting sensible particulars with Forms, two kinds of variation are mentioned (e3): particulars may vary in relation either 'to themselves' or 'to one another'. Hackforth (82, n.l) rightly rejects Burnet's view that the latter phrase refers to things presenting different appearances to different people. But there seems no need to suppose, with Hackforth, that the words 'or to one another' may be added because equality requires two terms. The point is simply that particulars may become more or less F at t2 than they were at t{ (they vary 'in relation to themselves'), or they may become more or less F than some other particular thing (they vary 'in relation to one another').
The stress here is upon the mutability of sensible particulars, their liability to be characterized by different attributes at different times, rather than (as at 102b—d) their being characterized by opposite attributes at the same time in relation to different things. They are also, of course, mutable in that they are ephemeraclass="underline" particular Fs come into being and pass away, whereas the Form F is conceived as eternal, 'that which is always existent' (79d2).
79al— bl7. 'Two kinds of beings' (a6): more literally, 'two kinds of the things that are'. See on 65c2—4 and note 34. For the inaccessibility of the Forms to the senses (al—4) cf.65d9—e4.
At 79a9—10 the 'invisible' is said to be always constant, and the 'seen' never constant. This is best taken as referring to the Forms and the sensible world as such, rather than as asserting, quite generally, that whatever is unseen is constant, and whatever is seen is inconstant. In effect, it recapitulates the premisses of 78dl—8 and 78dl0—e5, enabling the Form world to be designated in what follows either as 'the invisible' (79b 16) or 'the unvarying' (79e4).
The assumption that we are 'part body and part soul' (bl—2), upon which the argument of the whole dialogue rests, is simply posited and accepted without demur. For the concept of 'soul' see on 64e4—65a3. The inference that it is 'more similar' to the invisible than body (bl6—17) rests simply on the claim that it is invisible (al4).The 'seen' is defined (b9—10) with reference to human nature, perhaps to forestall the objection that the soul is not invisible to the gods.
'Similarity' is not defined. But if 'being more similar' means 'having more features in common', the fact that the soul shares with the Forms a given feature that the body lacks would not show that it is 'more similar' to them than is the body. Even if this were shown, it would not follow that the soul has all features in common with the Forms that the body lacks. Taken as an analogy, the argument is weak. It would be stronger if the feature common to the soul and the Forms were to entail the other relevant features, i.e. if invisibility were to entail invariability, invariability incompositeness, and incompositeness indestructibility. A chain connecting these concepts can, indeed, be derived from 78cl—9 and 79a9—10, but its links are weak. See on 78cl-9.
79c2-e7. A tacit assumption underlying the argument here is the Empedoclean doctrine that 'like knows like' (see DK 31 A 86, B 109). The soul's knowledge of the unvarying Forms shows its likeness to them; its confusion when it is in contact with varying sensibles shows that it is unlike them. Hence soul is 'more similar to what is unvarying than to what is not' (e3—5). Note that this conclusion is of a different form from the earlier 'soul is more similar than body to the invisible' (79b 16). That conclusion was of the form 'A is more similar than B to C\ This one is of the form 'A is more similar to C than to D\
Socrates claims only that the soul is 'more similar to the unvarying', not that it is unvarying. He could hardly say this after just saying that in using the senses it is 'dizzy, as if drunk' (c7—8). This recalls his earlier criticism of the senses (65a—b). But he does not explain their defects any more clearly here than before—see on 65b 1-7. Why should use of the senses make the soul 'dizzy'? In dizziness objects are experienced as changing when they are really at rest. Yet if the sensible world is, in fact, changing, the senses would not be deceiving us by representing it as doing so. Cf. Cratylus 411 b—c.
There is, perhaps, a further reason for Socrates' reluctance to say that the soul is unvarying. That the soul is, in fact, subject to change seems an inescapable consequence of (1) its liability to incarnation, and of (2) its role as a 'life-principle'. For (1) apparently requires that such properties as 'being in Socrates' body' should be truly predicable of the soul at one time but not at another. And (2) if, as a life-bearing agent, the soul is itself characterized by the property it imparts, and if life entails change, then soul must be subject to change. For the resulting tension with the present view of it as akin to the changeless Forms, see T. M. Robinson, P.P. 30.