Simmias: "Half of what needed proof has been proved, namely, that our soul existed before we were born, but further proof is needed that it exists no less after we have died, if the proof is to be complete." (116)

Answer #3: The Argument from Affinity

Socrates responds by suggesting that they investigate "what kind of thing is likely to be scattered [i.e., after death]?" (116-117)

1. "Is not anything that is composite and a compound by nature liable to be split up into its component parts, and only that which is noncomposite, if anything, is not likely to be split up?" (117)

2. "Are not the things that always remain the same and in the same state most likely not to be composite"? (117)

3. "… can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each thing in itself, the real, ever be affected by any change whatever?" (117)

4. "the soul is more like the invisible than the body, and the body is more like the visible" (118)

What does Socrates mean by the 'invisible'?

5. "that being so, is it not natural for the body to dissolve easily, and for the soul to be altogether indissoluble, or nearly so?

Of course" (119)

The souls of the 'impure' are "forced to wander there [in the 'visible' world] paying the penalty for their previous bad upbringing. They wander until their longing for … the physical … again imprisons them in a body…" (120)

Why the Philosopher Despises the Body (Again):

"No one may join the company of the gods who has not practised philosophy and is not completely pure when he departs from life…" (121)

"… every pleasure and every pain provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the soul to the body and to weld them together. It makes the soul corporeal, so that it believes that truth is what the body says it is." (122)

If the Argument from Affinity works, it seems to prove not just that the soul is immortal and the body is mortal, but that the harmony produced by a lyre is indestructible while the lyre itself (i.e., the physical thing) is destructible.

Why? Like a soul, "a harmony is something invisible, without body, beautiful and divine". (124) So, since a harmony is similar to the forms it too should be 'indissoluble'.

But we don't think that particular sounds are indestructible. So, why shouldn't we likewise think of the soul as a sort of harmony, i.e., an invisible, divine thing produced by the body and that dies with the body?

In responding, Socrates presents a new argument for the immortality of the soul.

Answer #4:  The Argument from Forms

"I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they exist, I hope to show you the cause as a result, and to find the soul to be immortal.' (138)

More about the Forms: "if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright colour or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons – for all these confuse me – but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned" (139)

Building on this, Socrates claims that we "do not know of any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, and that the things that are to be two must share in this, as that which is to be one must share in Oneness". (140)

1. Some Forms are opposites (e.g., Oddness and Evenness).

2. "an opposite will never be its own opposite". (142)

3. This doesn't hold just for Forms. Consider "the number three … do you not think it must always be called both by its own name and that of the Odd, which is not the same as three? … [three] is odd, but it is not the Odd?" (143)

Why must three called by the name Odd if it is not the same as the Odd?

"Shall we not say that three will perish or undergo anything before, while remaining three, becoming even?" (143)

"[T]hat which brings along some opposite into that which it occupies … will not admit the opposite to that which it brings along." (144)

What does S mean by 'brings along'?

4. Applying this to the soul: "what is it that, present in a body, makes it living? – A soul." (144)

That is, as one always 'brings Oddness along' with it, the soul always brings along life with it.

5. The Soul is 'Deathless'

The soul "will not admit death or be dead, just as three … will not be even". (145)

The Concluding Myth: The last part of the dialogue consists mostly of a story told by Socrates about what happens to the soul after death and about the shape of the earth. We live "in a hollow of the earth, we believe that we live upon its surface; the air we call the heavens, as if the stars made their way through it". (148)

Those on the surface "live much longer than people do here; their eyesight, hearing and intelligence and all such are as superior to ours as air is superior to water … they have groves and temples dedicated to the gods, in which the gods really dwell … they see the sun and moon and stars as they are". (149)

How does one get to the surface? "Those who are deemed to have lived an extremely pious life are freed and released from the regions of the earth as from a prison; they make their way up to a pure dwelling place and live on the surface of the earth. Those who have purified themselves sufficiently by philosophy live in the future altogether without a body; they make their way to even more beautiful dwelling places which it is hard to describe clearly". (152)

"No sensible man would insist that things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief … that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places". (152)

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[Note: the following material will not be covered in class at all.  Take a look at it if you're interested, but you won't be expected to know it for the exam.]

Staking out the Middle Ground: One of the things it is helpful to know about Aristotle is the 'moderate' character he has as a philosopher. In confronting two opposed views, he prefers to compromise. For this reason it is helpful to keep in mind the opposed positions Aristotle would have been confronted with in thinking about Forms and souls:

Aristotle on Form and Matter:

"Now one genus of things we call 'substance', but (1) one kind under this we regard as matter, which taken by itself is not a this, (2) another as shape and form, in virtue of which something is called 'a this', (3) and a third, a composite of the above two kinds. Matter exists as potentiality; form exists as actuality" (On the Soul, 412a6-10)

Forms are very different for Aristotle than for Plato. Where Plato conceives of Forms as independently existing things, the same is not true for Aristotle. Essentially, for Aristotle, a form is the organizing principle of matter. Matter without form is not anything at all. In this way, the word 'form' matches up with our modern use of it as meaning something like 'shape', but a soul is more than simply a shape.

Naturalizing the Soul: "the soul is the first actuality of a natural body with the potentiality of having life; and a body of this kind would be one which has organs." (412a28-412b1)

"the soul must be a substance in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially within it." (412a20-1)

Aristotle distinguished between different kinds of souls. Plants had only a nutritive soul (i.e., they are organized in such a way as to be nourished, grow and diminish). Animals had sensory/perceptual souls (i.e., they are organized as with a nutritive soul, but also with the ability to perceive and sense things). People had rational souls (i.e., they are organized so as to have all of the above, plus reason).

The Relation Between Body and Soul: "one should not inquire whether the soul and the body are one or not, just as one should not ask whether the wax and its shape or, in general, the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one or not" (412b6-8)