93all—b3. The B premisses begin here. Socrates asks (i) 'Isn't it natural for every attunement to be an attunement just as it's been tuned?' (all—12). Simmias fails to understand, and is next asked (ii) 'Isn't it the case that if it's been tuned more and to a greater extent, assuming that to be possible, it will be more an attunement and a greater one, whereas if less and to a smaller extent, it will be a lesser and smaller one?' (al4—b2).
What difference, if any, is intended between 'more' and 'to a greater extent', and between 'less' and 'to a smaller extent'? (2) Does this passage imply that degrees of attunement are possible, or that they are not, or does it imply neither of these things?
For (1), which is of minor importance, see note 51. Whatever difference may be intended between the two pairs of terms, no use is made of it in the argument. For simplicity, therefore, only the antithesis between 'more' and 'less' will be used in these notes.
, however, is critical for the argument. Burnet takes the passage as an admission that no attunement admits of degree. Socrates first asks (i) whether the nature of every attunement depends upon how it has been tuned, i.e. whether it varies according as it has been tuned to the interval of a fourth, a fifth, or an octave. He then suggests (ii) that if, per impossibile, an attunement were more or less tuned, it would not be more or less an attunement. On this view, (ii) would have to be understood as asking: 'And it isn't the case, is it, that (even) if it has been tuned more, it will be more of an attunement, whereas if it has been tuned less, it will be less of one?' However, if framed in this way, Socrates' question would expect the answer 'No', and Simmias' 'Certainly' at 93b3 would be inappropriate. Moreover, on Burnet's interpretation, (ii) would be an inept reply to Simmias' 'I don't understand.' For it would not explain what Socrates has asked in (i), but would make a completely fresh point. Yet (ii) must be meant to clarify for Simmias what he had been asked in (i) (cf. W. F. Hicken, C.Q. 1954, 19). It must, therefore, be suggesting that if an attunement has been more or less tuned, assuming that to be possible, it must be more or less an attunement. The characterization of the attunement will depend upon that of the tuning process. The first premiss of the argument may therefore be interpreted thus:
Bl. If an attunement has been more or less tuned, assuming that
to be possible, it will be more or less an attunement.
What is meant, however, by the proviso 'assuming that to be possible'? Burnet says that this plainly indicates that it is not possible for an attunement to be more or less tuned, hence that it could not be more or less an attunement than another. However, the 'assuming' clause need not, in itself, imply 'per impossibile''. Socrates does not say 'if, in fact, that were possible', but 'if, in fact, that is possible'. Cf.93e8 and 94a9, where 'assuming' introduces supposedly true premisses of the argument.
If Socrates were talking about the attunement of an instrument, Burnet's view would be clearly mistaken, for different degrees of tuning in a lyre .obviously are possible. However, the subject of the sentence is 'attunement', and it is not easy to attach sense to an attunement's being tuned in different degrees, or even at all. Moreover, there would seem no point in adding the proviso 'assuming that to be possible', if the possibility were obviously beyond dispute. It therefore seems preferable to suppose, with Hicken, op.cit. 20, and Bluck, 100, n.l, 198, that the question whether an attunement can be tuned more or less is here simply left open. The argument will then turn neither upon its possibility (Philoponus, Archer-Hind, Hackforth), nor upon its impossibility (Burnet). A quite different account of the proviso given by Verdenius (see note 52) leaves the argument equally unaffected.
93b4—7. The next premiss is:
B2. One soul is not, even in the least degree, more or less a
soul than another. Burnet takes this as derived from the previous admission together with the hypothesis that soul is attunement. The present sentence certainly could be translated as an inference, but has not been so taken here. That one soul is not more or less a soul than another seems hard to deny, and would be ill supported by the far more questionable proposition that attunement admits of no degrees (cf. W. F. Hicken, C.Q. 1954, 19). But in any case, there are serious objections to taking the latter proposition as a premiss (see previous note).
Philoponus, partially followed by Hackforth (118), takes 93all— b7 as a self-contained argument. Thus:
An attunement can be more or less an attunement;
A soul cannot be more or less a soul;
Hence,
A soul cannot be an attunement.
However, (i) (1) has not been asserted (see the account of B1 in the previous note), (ii) Such an argument would be defective. Attunement as such might admit of degrees, while specific kinds of attunement, such as souls, did not. As Philoponus says, the argument would have to run 'every attunement admits of degrees' (cf. Hicken, op.cit. 18, n.l). Moreover, (iii) if Simmias' theory were already refuted at 93b7, Socrates might be expected to say so, before passing on to a fresh point. 'Well, but' at 93b8 is therefore better taken as continuing with a further phase of the same argument (cf. the same phrase at 79b 1), than as introducing a new one.
93b8—clO. Two further premisses are now added:
B3. Some souls are good, and others bad (b8—c2).
B4. Good souls contain attunement, and bad souls contain non-
attunement (c3—8). Both premisses are accepted as self-evident, and must be assumed to be stronger than the attunement theory itself, if the argument is to succeed as a reductio ad absurdum of it. The denial of B3 will constitute the absurdity to which the theory will be reduced (94a8— 10).
B4 suggests an account of goodness and badness like that of the Republic (430e, 443d—e), where temperance and justice are defined in terms of attunement within soul and state. Socrates will argue here that such an account would be incompatible with Simmias' attunement theory. But would it be any more compatible with his own earlier suggestion that the soul is 'incomposite'? The account of goodness in the Republic is based upon a doctrine of 'parts' of the soul. If attunement or non-attunement can be contained only by that which is composite, they would require a different account of the soul from that which the Phaedo suggests. Plato recognizes and tries to resolve the conflict between the doctrine of a composite soul and that of immortality at Republic 61 lalO—612a7. See also on 78cl—9.
Philoponus finds in 93c3—8 a further self-contained argument against the attunement theory: taken together with B3 and B4, it implies that an attunement (a) may have a further attunement, or (b) may have a non-attunement, within itself, either of which would be absurd. It is true that to a modern reader (a) sounds ill-formed, while (b) appears to breach the principle maintained later (102d5— 103c8) that opposites cannot admit each other. Some such objection to (b) might be read into the argument at 94a2—4, but there is no indication that Socrates is appealing to it here. As for (a), the idea of an attunement's having a further attunement within itself seems no more objectionable than that of its being tuned, which figures twice in the argument (93al 1—bl, 93d6—9), yet is never dismissed as improper. Nor is the conclusion required by Philoponus' interpretation, that soul is not attunement, actually drawn at 93c9—10. The argument therefore remains, as yet, incomplete (cf. W. F. Hicken, C.Q. 1954, 17,n.3).