But here a problem arises. Socrates' remarks seem by now to have cut loose from their moorings at 101c. For the original 'safe' hypothesis, to which reference has so far been made, was that F things are F for no other reason than that they participate in the Form F. Yet the relation between this and the things it was introduced to explain is unlike the relation between premiss and conclusion. How, then, could a hypothesis designed to justify the Form-Reason hypothesis be posited 'in the same way' as was that hypothesis itself? If, as Robinson plausibly maintains (op.cit. 137), the words 'whichever should seem best of those above' (d7) are taken to mean that the relation between successive hypotheses is one of entailment, then the Form-Reason hypothesis would have to follow from 'another hypothesis' in the same way as its entailments follow from it. Yet it seems hard to find in the text, or to supply, any 'higher' hypothesis to which the Form-Reason hypothesis is thus related.
There is further obscurity in the clause 'till you came to something adequate' (el). Does this mean merely 'adequate to satisfy an objector to the first hypothesis'? Or 'adequate to satisfy yourself'? Robinson (op.cit. 137) excludes the latter, on the ground that 'you were already satisfied with the first hypothesis'. But this seems doubtful. For in dialectic the true philosopher will be his own objector. However strong his hypothesis may seem to him, it behoves him to justify it not only to his interlocutors but also to himself. Socrates has to persuade himself as well as others (91a6—bl, cf.lOOel—2).
It should also be asked whether 'something adequate' means 'some adequate hypothesis', as Robinson supposes, or whether it will consist in, something that is no longer hypothetical in character. A mere hypothesis, it might seem, could not be 'adequate', if its sole merit were that no objection to it could be found. A conclusion, however validly derived from a hypothesis, would be no stronger than the hypothesis itself; and if there were no positive reason to adopt the latter, it would afford no adequate ground for the conclusion. The Theory of Forms is a case in point. It will not give adequate ground for believing in immortality, unless there are independent grounds for adopting it. This, no doubt, is what Socrates means later (107b5—8), when he tells his listeners that they must study 'the initial hypotheses' further, even if they find them acceptable, and that they will follow the argument if they analyse them 'adequately'. See on 65d4-e5 (p.97), 107a2-bl0.
What might such an analysis consist in? The words 'best of those above' (d7) are sometimes taken to suggest an ascent, via successively 'higher' hypotheses, to a 'starting-point' (cf.e2), i.e. to some ultimate certainty that is not itself a hypothesis, but from which the propositions so far hypothesized can be deduced. Such a starting-point would be 'adequate' in the sense that it needed no justification itself, and rendered the system of propositions derived from it not only logically coherent but also true. In the Republic (510b7, 511b6) a starting-point of this kind is called 'unhypothetical', and is identified with the Form of the Good. Since Socrates' present account of his method was preceded by the story of his fruitless search for 'the good' (99c6—8), the present move from hypotheses to 'something adequate' has often been thought to anticipate the ascent to a first principle in the Republic. Accordingly, some commentators have wished to understand these lines in terms of a hierarchy of tele- ological propositions, somehow culminating in the Good. See, e.g., R. S. Bluck, Phronesis 1957, 21-31. The text, however, gives this no explicit support. No doubt Plato envisaged a system of ordered hypotheses as an ideal, for methodical scientific inquiry and exposition. But we can barely conjecture how, in detail, this ambitious programme was to be carried out. See, further, P. Friedlander, C.P. 1945, 256, H. F. Cherniss, A.J.P. 1947, 141, M. D. C. Tait, S.H.G.N. 110-15.
Socrates ends (lOlel—102al) by telling Cebes that he would not mix things up, like the 'contradiction-mongers', by arguing at the same time both about the starting-point and its consequences. The broad sense of this seems clear: the starting-point of an argument should be examined separately from the propositions derived from it. Aristotle attributes a similar precept to Plato (E.N. 1095a32), and it is well suited to the analysis of Platonic arguments generally. There may, however, be a more specific allusion to the contradiction- mongers' technique of confusing propositions about Forms with propositions about the particulars named after them. Such principles as 'it is by the beautiful that beautiful things are beautiful' (100e2— 3) would be open to misconstruction, in view of the ambiguity of 'the beautiful'. Just such a confusion in the meaning of 'the larger comes to be from the smaller', or more generally 'opposites come to be from their opposites', occurs later in the discussion (103a4— c2), and has to be disentangled. Cf. Euthydemus 300e—304b, where such ambiguities are exploited, and the exploiters castigated in terms similar to those used here—cf,101e5—6 with Euthydemus 303c—d. See also on 90b4—91c5. For the phrase 'to discover any of the things that are' (e3) see on 65c2—4.
3. 7 The Final Argument (102al0~-107bl0) Socrates now advances his final proof that soul is immortal and imperishable. Soul, which brings life to the body, cannot admit death, and is therefore immortal. And since the immortal is imperishable, soul cannot perish, but must withdraw at the onset of death.
102al0-d4. Socrates explicates the statement 'Simmias is larger than Socrates but smaller than Phaedo' in terms of the Theory of Forms. 'Large' and 'small' have been used in translation, rather than 'tall' and 'short'. But since the three men are, presumably, being compared in respect of height, 'overtop' has been used for the verb that expresses the relation between them.
For 'each of the forms was something' (bl) as a way of asserting their existence, see on 74a9—bl. At 102b2 the particulars that 'partake' in a Form are said to 'take its name'. For the Forms as 'eponymous' see on 65d4—e5 (p.96), 78dl0-e5. Individuals, such as Simmias, are said to 'take the name' of large and small (clO—11). Cf.l03b7-8. Note that whether a thing is called 'large' or 'larger', it is regarded as named after one and the same Form, the Form Large. Cf.l00e5—6, and see on 100e5-101b8.
Part of Socrates' purpose, evidently, is to distinguish properties that belong to a subject by its nature from those that it merely happens to have, and that it could lack without ceasing to be itself. Simmias does not overtop Socrates 'by nature' (cl), in the way that three and five will later be said to be odd 'by nature' (104a3, a7). He does not overtop Socrates 'by virtue of his being Simmias', but by virtue of the Largeness that he 'happens' to have (c2). This language marks the contrast between what we should call 'essential' and 'accidental' predication, which will be of the first importance in the coming argument.
Beyond this, however, the analysis of comparative statements is problematical.
(1) Why should theTstatement 'Simmias is larger than Socrates' be held not to be strictly or literally true (b8—cl), in virtue of its ascribing to Simmias an accidental property? Is it implied that all statements of accidental predication, including non-relational ones, need reformulation? And is it further implied that no statements of essential predication, not even relational ones, need such recasting, so that not only 'three is odd' but 'three is greater than two' is acceptable as it stands? If this is being suggested, the grounds for requiring a reformulation in one sort of case but not in the other are not explained. But it seems possible, despite the suggestion of 102b8—cl, that the need for reformulation arises more from the relational than from the accidental feature of the example. For it is relational predicates, whether they be accidental or essential, that give rise to the compresence of opposites in a single subject: 'three is greater than two but less than four' is just as true as 'Simmias is larger than Socrates but smaller than Phaedo'. Has Socrates conflated what we should regard as two different distinctions?