The words 'completely immortal and imperishable' (b5—6) are significant. Socrates' answer to Cebes will consist in trying to show that soul has just these properties (cf.95cl, 106e9—107a 1). Hackforth (100,n.3,cf.l22, n.l, 164, n.l) thinks that 'immortal' and 'imperishable' are 'as yet' used synonymously. But Socrates will first argue that soul is 'immortal' (102b—105e), and then that it is 'imperishable' (106a—e). D. O'Brien (C.Q. 1968, 97) rightly argues that the distinction is anticipated here. See on 91d2—9, 95b5—e6, 105el0— 107al (p.217).
3.5 Reply to Simmias (88c 1—95a3)
Socrates prefaces his reply with a warning against 'misology', the hatred of arguments. He then counters the objection of Simmias by refuting the attunement theory.
88c 1—89c 10. Echecrates' dismayed reactions to Simmias' and Cebes' objections introduce the parallel between arguments and people that occupies this section. Note that the argument for immortality is itself personified at 89b9—cl. Socrates is determined that it shall not 'die', that it shall be 'revived'. The fate of the argument thus parallels his. He is the human counterpart of his own thesis.
At 88d8 Echecrates wants to be convinced that when a man dies, his soul does not 'die with him'. Comparison of this passage with 88a4—6 reveals a shift in the usage of 'die'. In the earlier passage Cebes grants that when we have died, nothing prevents our souls from being born and 'dying over and over again'. 'Dying over and over again' must mean 'being repeatedly separated from the body'. This is consistent with the definition of death at 64c2—9, and with the soul's being said to 'die' at 77d3-4 and 84b2. But in the present passage, the compound verb translated 'die with him' cannot mean merely 'be separated from the body'. It must mean something like 'cease to exist (along with the man himself)'.
At 89c5—6 Phaedo says: 'even Heracles is said to have been no match for two'. Heracles, while fighting the hydra, was attacked by a large crab, and called his nephew Iolaus to his aid (cf. Euthydemus 297c). The 'two' opponents meant here must be (1) Simmias and (2) Cebes, and not, as K. Dorter suggests (.Dialogue 1970, 570), (1) their joint case against immortality, and (2) the consequent threat of misology. Since Socrates does not mention misology till 89dl, Phaedo could not be alluding to it at 89c5. 'While there's still light' (89c7—8), however, glances forward to Socrates' execution, which was due at sunset (cf.61e4,116el—2).
89dl—4. Socrates here says that one could suffer no greater evil than 'misology', whereas at 83c2—9 the greatest of all evils was said to be taking the sensible world to be fully real. These alleged evils, although surely not the same, may, in Plato's view, be related. One who has lost all faith in rational argument will not recognize Forms as the true 'realities'. He will assume that the sensible world alone is real, and will thus be 'deprived both of the truth and of knowledge of things that are' (90d6-7).
'Misologist' and 'misology' have been used to parallel 'misanthropist' and 'misanthropy'. The Greek words are rare, but cf. Laches 188c6, Republic 411d7. 'Arguments' suits the emphasis in this context upon rational discussion, but is not altogether satisfactory (see next note). At 90b6—8 and 90c9, arguments are said to be 'true' and 'false'. These words do not go naturally with 'arguments', but have been kept to preserve the required parallel between arguments and people. 'Skill in arguments' (90b7) perhaps includes not only 'knowing how to assess arguments' (Hackforth), but the capacity to handle arguments in live discussion. This is not only parallel with 'skill in human relations' (89e5—90a2) but actually requires it. Socrates is shown as a master at handling people and arguments alike (88e4-89a7, 95a8-b4). See also on 84d4-85dl0.
90b4—91c5. The misologist's distrust of arguments is extended at 90c3 to the 'things' that they concern. Cf.88c6—7. Finding arguments neither true nor secure, the misologist supposes that 'things' lack these properties as well. Thus, since arguments seem to him 'now true and now false' (d2—3), there can be for him no fixed truths: 'the things that are' share the arguments' instability, like things fluctuating in the rapid currents of the Euripus (c5—6).
The assumption that 'arguments' and 'things' have properties in common underlies Socrates' own resort to 'arguments' (logoi) at 99e—100a, where it has been translated 'theories'. In studying in them 'the truth of the things that are' (99e5-6, cf.90d6-7), he supposes that they reflect that truth. Indeed, the Theory of Forms, in one aspect, is precisely the assumption that truth is discoverable through philosophical arguments. The Forms are the 'truth' that 'true arguments' express. Here the inadequacy of the translations 'true' and 'argument' becomes apparent. 'Truth' not only belongs to 'arguments', but also characterizes or designates 'the things that are'. It is a property not only of arguments, but of what they express. And 'arguments' are not merely pieces of reasoning, to be assessed for their internal logic, but are characterizations of a 'reality'external to themselves. These nuances defy translation, and are a constant source of difficulty. For 'truth' and 'reality' see on 66b 1— c5 and 83b2—3. For 'arguments' see on 84d4-85dl0, 100a3-9 (p. 178),
and previous note.
At 90c 1 the translation 'antinomies' preserves the sense of 'arguments for and against' a given proposition. For the prevalence of such argumentation, see G. Ryle, Plato's Progress, Ch.4, and Hackforth, 108—11. Good specimens are to be found in the treatise Dissoi Logoi, 'Arguments Both Ways', trans. R. K, Sprague, Mind 1968, 155—67. The style of argument is parodied by Plato in the Euthydemus. 'Contradiction-mongers' has been used to translate the same notion at 101e2, where it is applied to those who trade in arguments of this kind, caring nothing for truth but only for victory. Plato denounces them elsewhere for inducing intellectual or moral scepticism (cf., e.g., Republic 538d—539e). The motive to which they appeal, the desire to be proved right and to prove others wrong, is endemic in philosophy. Socrates may even be semi-serious in confessing to it himself (91a—b). But his primary concern to convince himself (91a7—bl) is genuine. It is a mark of the true philosopher, and shows continually in what he says (96b 1, 96e7, 97b4,100d9).
91d2—9. In restating Cebes' position, Socrates asks 'whether death might not be just this, the perishing of soul' (d6—7). D. O'Brien (C.Q. 1968, 98-100) interprets this as a new definition of 'death': instead of meaning, as at 64c2—9, 'separation of soul from body', it now means 'perishing of soul'. Consequently, soul must now be proved not only 'immortal' but 'imperishable'. For it might survive separation from the body once or many times, as Cebes had allowed (88a4—7), and yet be unable to survive all such separations. To be shown capable of this, it must be proved immune from 'death' in the new sense, i.e. imperishable.
O'Brien (op.cit. 98, n.2) links the present passage with 88al0— b2 and 95d2. But neither of those passages points to a redefinition of 'death', and both use the term in its familiar sense. The former (see on 88al—b8) expressly recalls the sense established at 64c. The latter suggests that incarnation might be the start of the soul's perishing, and that it might finally perish 'in what is called death' (95d4), i.e. in 'death' as that term is commonly used. Could Socrates here be operating with the new sense of 'death' that O'Brien suggests? If so, he would be speculating, that 'death', in this new sense, might begin with the soul's entry into the body, and be completed at the time of 'death' in the familiar sense. This would be a confusing way of redefining the term.