It seems preferable to take the present lines either (i) as restating the idea of 87d8—e5 that the death of the man might be due to the perishing of his soul, or (ii) as recalling the idea of 88a9—b3 that one of the soul's deaths might 'bring perishing' to it. With (i), 'death is the perishing of soul' will be an explanation rather than a redefinition of death. Death is due to the perishing of soul, somewhat as a blackout is due to a power-failure. The cessation of vital functions is due to a breakdown of their source. On this view, the words simply resume Cebes' original idea of soul as an agent of bodily change. With (ii), 'death is the perishing of soul' will mean that the trauma of separation from the body will sooner or later prove fatal to the soul. This would link the words closely with 88al0—b2, and 'death' would be used in precisely the sense there specified. It is possible that both these ideas are in Socrates' mind, but the emphasis on constant bodily flux (cf.91d7 with 87d9) strongly suggests that he is thinking at least of (i). If he is thinking only of (i), there is no reference here to Cebes' concession at 88a4—7 regarding reincarnation. That will be glanced at only in the second restatement of his position (95d4-6).
On any interpretation of these lines 'death' must, here as at 88al0—b4 and 95d4, mean the 'event' of dying rather than the 'state' of being dead. See note 4, and on 71d5—e3. For the concept of 'death', see also on 57al-b3, 64c2-9, 88al-b8, 88cl-89cl0, 105c9—dl2, 105dl3-e9, 105el0-107al (p.221).
92a6-c3. Socrates here points out that the attunement theory of the soul conflicts with the belief in its prenatal existence, which Simmias had accepted. This point is ad hominem, and would, of course, be ineffective against someone who rejected the Recollection Argument. But how effective is it against someone who accepts it? As noted above (see on 86b5—d4), the attunement theory may be variously interpreted. An attunement may be (a) a ratio, (b) a tuned state, or (c) music. On any of these interpretations, Simmias might reply that an attunement could, in fact, have existed before the particular body in which it inhered. Thus, (a) the ratio governing the lengths of lyre strings could be said to exist before any given lyre; (b) the tuned state of lyres in general could be said to exist before some particular lyre came into existence; and (c) music, e.g. a scale or melody, could exist before any given instrument on which it might be played. In short, neither tunings nor tunes depend for their existence upon that of particular instruments.
Simmias makes no such response, however. To do so would require 'attunement' to be understood in such a way that different lyres could share the same attunement. On such a view, Simmias' theory would entail that different bodies could share the same soul. To avoid this consequence, it must be supposed that the attunement of each instrument is unique to it, and numerically distinct from the attunements in all others. It could not then exist before its own lyre, or survive that instrument's destruction. Understood thus, the attunement theory would make Simmias' original point, and would also be defeated by Socrates' present objection.
At 92b7—8 Socrates says: 'attunement isn't, in fact, the same kind of thing as that to which you liken it' (sc. the soul). This interpretation follows Burnet's text, and assumes a slight looseness in the use of 'likening', since it is, strictly, the soul that has been likened to an attunement, and not vice versa. For this reason Verdenius prefers a variant reading, and would replace 'as that to which you liken it' with 'as you represent it' or 'as you guess it to be'. But if Simmias can be said to have 'represented' an attunement as being of any particular nature, it is only as being liable to perish before its component elements, and Socrates is not disputing that.
This note, and subsequent notes on Socrates' refutation of the attunement theory, owe much to an unpublished paper by Mr. C. C. W. Taylor.
92cll—e3. Simmias now renounces the attunement theory as incompatible with the theory of Recollection, which was in turn derived 'from a hypothesis worthy of acceptance' (d6—7, cf.el—2), i.e. the Theory of Forms. It is plausible to see his withdrawal as an application of the 'hypothetical method' that Socrates will describe at 100a3—7, the positing of the theory he judges to be strongest, and the taking of things not in accord with it to be untrue. Admittedly, Simmias has not yet been told of the hypothetical method. But it is because he believes in adopting 'the best and least refutable of human doctrines' (cf.85c8—dl with 100a3—4) that he now has to retract the attunement theory. He is committed, unawares, to Socrates' own method. See on 84d4-85dl0.
The sense of the words translated 'just as surely as its object exists—the Being, bearing the name of "what it is"' (d8—9) is uncertain. Loriaux (155, cf. E.F.P. 31) argues that the phrase 'bearing the name' must have a causal nuance, and embodies a proof of the Forms' existence. This, he thinks, dictates the interpretation 'in virtue of its bearing the name of that which is"—i.e. 'that which exists'. The present version follows Loriaux in taking the main verb of the 'just as' clause (the first 'is' at d9) existentially. But the sense of 'is' in the 'what' clause cannot be fixed as he argues. To derive the Forms' 'being' from the nomenclature used to refer to them would be a singularly weak 'proof of their existence. See also note 50.
92e4—93al0. Socrates here begins a new assault on the attunement theory. The section that follows, 93all-94b3, is extremely difficult, and its analysis remains highly problematic. Reference should be made to Archer-Hind, Burnet, Hackforth, Verdenius, Bluck, and W. F. Hicken, C.Q. 1954, 16-22. Olympiodorus' commentary (ed. W. Norvin, 169) and Philoponus on Aristotle De Anima 1,4. (ed. M. Hayduck, 141-5) are also relevant.
The argument of 93all— 94b3 will be referred to here as 'Argument B'. It is followed at 94b4-95a3 by a further argument against the attunement theory, which will be called 'Argument A'. Steps in each argument will be numbered accordingly (A1 etc., B1 etc.). The attunement hypothesis itself will be referred to as H.
The admissions of 92e4—93al0 serve as premisses for Argument A. At 93al 1 Socrates appears to start afresh, eliciting a new set of admissions (93all—clO), to be used as premisses for Argument B. The structure of the whole passage 92e4—95a3 is therefore as follows:
Premisses for Argument A (92e4-93al0);
Premisses for Argument B (93al 1-clO);
Argument B (93dl-94b3);
Argument A (94b4-95a3).
Here the pattern A-B-B-A is well marked (cf. Hicken, op.cit. 17). Yet it is hard to see why Plato has cast the arguments in this form. If the A premisses are left unused until Argument A, the train of thought begun by them is interrupted for more than a page. Archer-Hind (78) provides continuity by linking the A with the B premisses: the admission at 93a6—10 that an attunement is governed by its constituent elements is supposed to support the claim at 93all—b3 that the extent of every attunement depends upon the extent to which it is tuned. But this seems unlikely. The words 'Again now', which preface the B premisses at 93all (cf.92e4,94b4), serve to divide them from the A premisses rather than to link them. Nor, in fact, are these sets of premisses logically connected. The dependence of an attunement upon its constituent elements does not imply its dependence upon the extent to which it is tuned. The former dependence concerns the state of an attunement (al), how 'it acts and is acted upon' (a4), whereas the latter concerns the extent to which it is an attunement (93b 1—2). Moreover, the constituent elements are not mentioned in the B premisses at all. The extent to which an attunement is an attunement is said to depend not upon how its elements are tuned, but upon how it is tuned itself (93al2, al4).
The A and B arguments, and their respective premisses, are therefore better taken as logically unrelated. Further discussion of the A premisses will be deferred until Argument A is considered. See on 94b4-95a3.