It seems, then, that B5 is defensible if it is interpreted solely in terms of attunement1. But 'being an attunement1' does not entail 'being in a state of attunement2'. B5** therefore does not follow from B5, and seems, moreover, actually false. Applying this result to the soul, it may be argued that its being an attunement in the sense required by Simmias' theory need not preclude it from lacking attunement in some sense that would enable good and bad souls to be distinguished in the way proposed at B4. And if the derivation of Bll is fallacious, the further conclusion at B12, that all souls are equally good, will be open to similar objections.
It is hard to be sure that the argument equivocates upon 'attunement' in the way just suggested. But if it does, the root ambiguity is one that pervades the use of many abstract nouns, in both Greek and English, such as 'height', 'length', 'depth', 'size', 'weight', 'thickness', or 'speed'. In sense 1 we may speak of David's height as well as Goliath's, of the tortoise's speed as well as the hare's. But in sense 2 it is only Goliath who has height, and only the hare who has speed. Thus, David's height1 can lack height2; the tortoise's speed1 can lack speed2; and a lyre's attunement1 can lack attunement .
Possibly, in denying that attunement can participate in non- attunement, Socrates would rely on the principle of 102d5—103c8, that 'opposites will not admit each other'. But it will be evident that that principle would not really be infringed by the supposition that an attunement1 can admit non-attunement2. For attunement1 and non-attunement2 are not opposites of each other.
A stronger reply for Socrates to make would be to deny that the attunement theory is correctly represented in terms of attunement1. Soul, according to the theory, was not just any tuning of the bodily elements, but their correctly tuned state, i.e. attunement2. Cf.86cl — 2, 'when they're blended with each other in due proportion'. It therefore remains debatable whether good and bad souls (attune- ments2) could, in fact, be distinguished in terms of a further attunement2 in the way proposed at B4.
Hackforth (119—20) takes 94a2—5 as withdrawing the assumption, provisionally made at 93al4-bl, that one can tune a lyre more or less exactly. But that assumption was neither made nor denied in the earlier passage (see on 93al 1—b3). Nor is it here denied that varying degrees of tuning in a lyre are possible. Bluck (100, n.l) cites Republic 349el0—16 as denying this, although, in fact, it suggests just the opposite. But controversy over whether a lyre can be tuned more or less exactly is largely irrelevant. For the soul is not being compared with a lyre, but with an attunement; and it is with the implications of an attunement's (not a lyre's) being tuned that the whole argument is concerned.
The reductio ad absurdum is finally sprung at 94al2—b3. B13 has been supplied in the summary above, to enable the attunement theory (H) to be represented as generating a contradiction: since B12 conflicts with the common-sense intuition B3 accepted earlier, H has to be withdrawn.
Note that at 94b 1 the attunement theory is called a 'hypothesis' (cf.93cl0). The argument is evidently an application of the 'hypothetical method' described at 100a and lOlc-d. The hypothesis that soul is attunement has been shown to lead to 'contradiction', i.e. to a consequence (B12) which conflicts with an earlier admission (B3). It is rejected because its 'consequences' are in discord with each other (cf.l01d4—5). See R. Robinson, P.E.D. 142. Of course, B3 is not itself a logical consequence of H but an independent assumption. But cf. Robinson (op.cit. 133): '[A hypothesis] may have conflicting consequences on our standing assumptions, that is, when combined with some of our permanent beliefs.' This is the kind of 'contradiction' involved both here and in the refutation of the attunement theory (Argument A) that follows. See also on92cll— e3.
94b4—95a3. Argument A runs thus:
Al. The soul can control and oppose the bodily feelings (94b4— c2,94c9—el).
Furthermore, as was agreed earlier (92e4—93al0):
A2. An attunement can never be in a state other than that of its
components (92e4—93a3).
A3. An attunement can neither act nor be acted upon in any way different from its components (93a4—5,94c3—8). Hence,
A4. An attunement cannot control or oppose its own components (93a6—9). Hence,
A5. The soul cannot be an attunement (94e8—95al). Al develops and applies the principle used earlier (80a), that soul 'rules' body. It often opposes bodily inclinations and prevents their gratification. These include anger and fear, hunger and thirst (94b8—
10, d5). All such states are here lumped together as 'bodily', and are viewed as sources of conflict between soul and body. In the Republic Plato will treat similar conflicts as evidence of different 'parts' within the soul itself. The first of the two lines quoted from the Odyssey (xx.17) at 94d8—el is used at Republic 441b6 to support a distinction between 'rational' and 'spirited' elements in the soul. See on 64e4—65a3 (p.89).
A2 and A3, if taken strictly, are overstatements. The attunement of a lyre is clearly capable of 'being acted upon' in a way in which its components are not. For it may be destroyed, while the strings and wood remain intact. Moreover, the strings may be 'acted upon' in such ways as being stretched or severed. These operations, although they affect the attunement, could hardly be regarded as affections of the attunement itself: it is not stretched or severed. Its affections need not, therefore, coincide with those of its components. But this does not alter the essential point. A lyre's attunement depends wholly upon the state and relationship of its material components, whereas they in no way depend upon it. The causal relation is in one direction only. By contrast, the soul is not only acted upon by the bodily elements, but acts upon them. This is the point at which the attunement theory is being held to break down.
All that would follow from this argument, however, is that the soul is not an attunement of bodily feelings. It would not follow that it is not an attunement at all. To this it might be replied that bodily feelings are, according to the attunement theory, the components of the soul. But this is not quite in line with Simmias' original account. The components there specified were 'hot and cold, dry and wet, and the like' (86b8—9). Bodily feelings, such as hunger and thirst, or anger and fear, were not mentioned. Yet they are now referred to as 'alleged sources' of the soul's existence (94cl0—dl). No doubt they are to be thought of as due to the presence of the basic physical elements in various proportions, thirst, for example, being associated with heat (94b8—9). But they are clearly not on a par with those elements, and it therefore remains uncertain whether, according to the theory, the 'components' of a soul-attunement are the basic physical elements (as at 86b), or their psychic products (as here), or both.
More generally, the strength of the argument will depend upon whether the phenomena of conflict and self-control demand explanation in Socrates' terms. A defender of the attunement theory might deny that they evidence the activity of an autonomous soul. The soul's so-called 'opposition' to the body, he might object, is itself simply the effect of a bodily state.
3.6 Socrates' Story (95a4-l02a9)
Cebes' objection leads Socrates into an account of his own intellectual history. He tells of his early interest in natural science, and his abandonment of it in favour of a quest of his own. His method is described and illustrated with reference to the Theory of Forms.