95b5—e6. Cebes' position is here restated once again. As before (88b5—6), it is required that soul be proved 'imperishable and immortal' (cl). Hackforth's view (122, n.l) that these terms are still being used synonymously is rightly rejected by D. O'Brien (C.Q. 1968, 97). But the addition of 'imperishable' does not seem to be dictated, as O'Brien suggests, by Cebes' concession regarding reincarnation. This concession would, he thinks, allow the soul a limited or 'partial' immortality, i.e. survival of one or more deaths, but would not guarantee it 'full' immortality, i.e. survival of any and every death. 'Imperishability' is therefore added, O'Brien suggests, to fill this potential deficiency in the notion of 'immortality'. See on 91d2—9.
If this were so, we should expect Cebes to allow that, were reincarnation granted, the soul would have been proved 'immortal' in the limited sense, and only its 'imperishability' would remain to be shown. But this is not how Socrates presents Cebes' position here. He argues that the soul's strength, divinity, and prior existence need not prove its immortality (cl, dl); and that it would make no difference whether the soul was incarnate once or many times (d4—5): one would still be foolish not to fear death, unless one could prove the soul immortal (d6—el). A proof of 'immortality' would still be needed, then, even if the soul were reincarnate many times. It follows that 'immortality' cannot be used here in any sense less stringent than the ability to survive every death. And since Cebes agrees that the present resumd expresses his position exactly (e4—6), he can hardly have had anything else in mind at 88a—b.
It is doubtful whether the concept of 'partial' immortality finds any place in the dialogue. At 73a2—3 (see on 72e7—73a3) Cebes had referred to the doctrine of Recollection as showing that the soul is immortal, in virtue of its prenatal existence. But he later complains (77cl-5) that the Recollection Argument has shown only 'half what is needed. It must also be shown that our souls will exist when we have died, 'if the proof is going to be complete'. That objection, essentially, is repeated here (c6—d2), and it is added that it would not be met, even if many incarnations were admitted. All this strongly suggests that for Cebes 'immortality' never connotes any thing.less than 'full' immortality in O'Brien's sense, the capacity to survive any number of deaths without perishing. Nevertheless, there is an important point in the addition of 'imperishable', which will become clear later. See on 105el0— 107al (p.217).
95e7—96a5. Socrates' account of his intellectual history is, as G. Vlastos has said (P.R. 1969, 297), 'one of the great turning points in European natural philosophy'. It is, in fact, a striking counterpart in ancient philosophy of Descartes's Discourse on Method, despite its rejection of 'mechanistic' explanations that Descartes,was to revive. Cf. A. E. Taylor, P.M. W. 200, n.l. Like Descartes, Socrates professes to be confused by the senses and to abandon their use. Both are pioneers of a new philosophical method. Both seek metaphysical foundations for mathematics and natural science. And both formulate basic certainties that fortify their religious convictions. Moreover, the autobiographical form of Socrates' story, as of Descartes's, disguises the true rigour of its author's thought.
For philosophical purposes it hardly matters whether Socrates' story is authentic, and if so, whether it is true of the historical Socrates or of Plato himself, or whether part is true of each. For a balanced review of these alternatives see Hackforth, 127—31. It is more important to ask how if bears upon Cebes' position. Why is his objection here said to require an inquiry into the reason concerning coming-to-be and destruction? This demands an elucidation of two key concepts: (1) 'reason', and (2) 'coming-to-be and destruction'.
(1) The primary sense of the noun translated 'reason' (aitia) is 'charge' or 'accusation'. The related adjective, applied to human agents, means 'responsible' or 'at fault' (cf,116c8), and the cognate verb means 'accuse' or 'blame'. The concept is thus rooted in the notion of human responsibility (cf.98e2—99a4). In a secondary and frequent use, the noun, and the adjective in its neuter form, are applied to a wide range of non-human things, to which events or states of affairs may be attributed. Similarly, the verb can mean 'impute' or 'ascribe' (98b9, c2, el).
In its secondary use the noun has traditionally been rendered 'cause'. This hallowed mistranslation is particularly unfortunate here, since it covers, at most, only part of the field with which Socrates is concerned. Many of the things he will mention are not amenable to what we should call 'causal' explanation. They are not, and could not be, subsumed under causal laws, or related to sets of antecedent conditions sufficient for them to come about. See on 96cl—e5.
Socrates' interest in natural science prompts a number of questions of the form 'why is x FT, which are generally answered by a noun in the dative case ('by yr) or by a prepositional phrase ('on account of', or 'owing to', or 'because of, y). It becomes ciear from the discussion that these questions mean, initially at least, 'in what does x's F-ness consist?' or 'what constitutes x's F-ness?'. To ask 'why' x is F need not be to ask what 'causes' it to be F, but may rather be to ask for the feature in virtue of which it is F. The range of possible interests covered by Socrates' questions is well reflected in the English question 'what makes x FT, which may embody a request either for causal explanation or for conceptual clarification. Socrates' disenchantment with the natural sciences stems from their failure to pursue the latter. It is not, however, clear that the conceptual sense of the question is the only one relevant to the discussion. It is arguable that Socrates will later formulate an aitia that is not constitutive of a thing's being F, but causally imparts F-ness to it, and thus explains how it comes to be F. If such an aitia is provided, then a concern with something like 'causes' in the modern sense is not, after all, to be ruled out. See on 100c9—e4, 105b5-c8 (p.211).
The Protean nature of the concept, and the restrictions that will be placed upon it, make it impossible to find a translation of aitia that fits all of Socrates' multifarious examples, but 'reason' is perhaps the least unsuitable. It has been used for the noun, and for relevant occurrences of the adjective, throughout. See also G. Vlastos, op.cit. 292-6, and E. L. Burge, Phronesis 1971, 1-13.
(2) As noted earlier (see on 70c4—8), the verb translated 'come to be' has both complete and incomplete uses. Similarly, the noun translated 'coming-to-be' (genesis) can mean either a thing's coming- into-being (its 'genesis' in the English sense) or its acquisition of an attribute (see on 71al2~b5). Accordingly, an inquiry into the reason concerning 'coming-to-be' might be either (i) an inquiry into the reason for the coming-into-being of things, or (ii) an inquiry into the reason for their acquisition of attributes. In the ensuing discussion Socrates will confine himself to (ii) (cf. Hackforth, 144— 6). Yet some contribution to (i) is surely demanded from the perspective of Cebes' objection. His conception of the soul as a source of vital energy calls for an improved account of things' 'coming-into- being', and not merely of their coming to be, e.g., large or beautiful. Moreover, it is just such an account that Socrates' language leads us to expect. When he asks repeatedly (96a9-10, cf.97b5-6,97c6-7) 'why each thing comes to be, why it perishes, and why it exists', it is natural to take 'comes to be' as the counterpart of 'perishes', i.e. as meaning 'comes into being'. Hackforth (145, n.l) rightly remarks, of the verb cognate with the noun translated 'destruction' at 95e9, that it cannot mean 'lose an attribute'. We should expect, then, that Socrates will explain not merely the acquisition and loss of attributes by already existing things, but the coming-into-being of things that do not exist, and the perishing of things that do.