Existence exists and nonexistence does not exist. — daniel j lavender

Death, look into it. It exists.

I think you might get more of a response if you raise this issue on the Feedback part of the site.

I am a newcomer here myself. I often find some judgement to be too harsh and then realize that I, too, have been a jerk. I can barely moderate myself.

In defense of holding out for standards on accepting OP topics, conversations get moved off the front page very quickly. This place is an iceberg of previous discussion. I cooled my jets when I started checking that stuff out.

Anyway, enough about me.

I don't think the ground for science is a straightforward matter. I acknowledge that Nietzsche's critique of objective "facts" would seem to undermine any project he chose to pursue toward the end of establishing some of his own. On the other hand, he does just that. Without apology, qualification, or explanation, he pursues the practice of psychology and places it above others:

All psychology so far has been stuck in moral prejudices and fears: it has not ventured into the depths. To grasp psychology as morphology and the doctrine of the development of the will to power, which is what I have done – nobody has ever come close to this, not even in thought: this, of course, to the extent that we are permitted to regard what has been written so far as a symptom of what has not been said until now. The power of moral prejudice has deeply affected the most spiritual world, which seems like the coldest world, the one most likely to be devoid of any presuppositions – and the effect has been manifestly harmful, hindering, dazzling, and distorting. A genuine physio-psychology has to contend with unconscious resistances in the heart of the researcher, it has “the heart” against it. Even a doctrine of the reciprocal dependence of the “good” and the “bad” drives will (as a refinedimmorality) cause distress and aversion in a strong and sturdy conscience – as will, to an even greater extent, a doctrine of the derivation of all the good drives from the bad. But suppose somebody considers even the affects of hatred, envy, greed, and power-lust as the conditioning affects of life, as elements that fundamentally and essentially need to be present in the total economy of life, and consequently need to be enhanced where life is enhanced, – this person will suffer from such a train of thought as if from sea-sickness. And yet even this hypothesis is far from being the most uncomfortable and unfamiliar in this enormous, practically untouched realm of dangerous knowledge: – and there are hundreds of good reasons for people to keep out of it, if they – can! On the other hand, if you are ever cast loose here with your ship, well now! come on! clench your teeth! open your eyes! and grab hold of the helm! – we are sailing straight over and away from morality; we are crushing and perhaps destroying the remnants of our own morality by daring to travel there – but what do we matter! Never before have intrepid voyagers and adventurers opened up a more profound world of insight: and the psychologist who “makes sacrifices” (they are not the sacrifizio dell’intelletto22 – to the contrary!) can at least demand in return that psychology again be recognized as queen of the sciences,23 and that the rest of the sciences exist to serve and prepare for it. Because, from now on, psychology is again the path to the fundamental problems.
Beyond Good and Evil, 23, Translated by Judith Norman

This juxtaposition of purposes is clearly intended to challenge the reader. He says as much in Ecce Homo where he delights in not helping people fill the gaps. The development of the argument in the On the Genealogy of Morality shows the two un-reconciled elements together where the "objective" arguments reveal some kind of limit to objectivity. The contradiction between the two are placed side by side with each other, as if seating the most contentious members of a family together at Sunday dinner.

I understand that Popper follows up on this topic for the purpose of establishing viable methods in science. He specifically objects to "historicism." Closer than Kuhn to Popper's objection comes from Strauss in his Natural Right and History. They have cogent arguments. I am not sure they would satisfy Nietzsche's criteria of good readers.

Sure, we could talk about other things. But what is wrong with what we were talking about before?

We read books and listen to how other people read the same books. Before we can disagree with each other about what is meant, there is this phase where we make sure we are reading the same book. There is very little evidence for me in this thread to suggest we are reading the same book. Or a group of them.

Im interested in the method of his investigation, because the results are pre-figured in the method in the sense of how we are supposed to understand the groundedness of those results — Joshs

The properties of ressentiment were "prefigured" by the limits of how ideas could be expressed after Nietzsche critisized Kantian metaphysics?

As for the citation from Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche's genealogical method of historical analysis , which was taken up by Heidegger and Foucault, is not a causal explanation of history. — Joshs

Maybe not. But it is an attempt to use history to claim something beyond fiction. It matters if Nietzsche is correct or not in his reasoning.

Instead, genealogy seeks to illuminate the contingency of what we take for granted, to denaturalise what seems immutable, to destabilise seemingly natural categories as constructs and confines articulated by words and discourse and to open up new possibilities for the future." — Joshs

Yes. That is exactly what Nietzsche said in the portion I quoted, including the part where he says "What can be defined, has no history." That points to a claim about what is the case for us. The critique of metaphysics is put forward to allow for a different kind of explanation. You seem more interested in the critique than the results of his investigation.

When quoting Nietzsche (or anyone), please point to where and what edition you are referring to. Or at least the translator.

It would help if i understood what you have in mind when you refer to objective experience. — Joshs

My comment asked how you understand this quote from Nietzsche's notebook when placed side by side with the historical method developed in his published work. The purpose of the On the Genealogy of Morality is objective analysis. Are you suggesting he was just kidding when he purported to explain the origins of guilt,"bad conscience", and the ascetic ideal?

By the way, what edition of The Will to Power are you quoting from? My Kaufmann and Holingdale edition does not have your citation numbers.

In the U.S., we have this Establishment of Religion thing. In regards to speech, it allows groups to say stuff to themselves that is theoretically only limited by whether it stops other groups saying stuff to themselves. The way I think of it is as an exchange where I can say what I please to my kid because I will let you do the same to your kid.

Anyway, this agreement leads to a language that is formed outside of that deal. This secular space is a result but an undetermined one. It is a measure of law but more one of custom. If we cannot hammer out a way not to incite each other in our immediate dealings with each other, then the original deal is off.

Now there have been many times in our history where that cancellation happened, especially in small communities where the private is stronger than the public ethos. The arbiter of what is permitted can serve either master. I support the public ethos but I don't think I can wave a wand and assure it will win all that confronts it.

I hope that doesn't help.

I think it is a mistake to take Nietzsche's objections to certain metaphysical ideas to be an abandonment of objective description or that nothing can be learned about the causes of events.

The premise of a book such as the On the Genealogy of Morality not only points to a shared experience but argues that the conditions are even narrower than one might realize if one takes the present evaluations as given. Nietzsche objected to the "English psychologists" because they assumed what was present to them in real time must be "natural." The need for a method of history is introduced:

Now as for that other element in punishment—that which is fluid, its “meaning”—in a very late state of culture (for example in present-day Europe), the concept “punishment” in fact no longer represents a single meaning at all but rather an entire synthesis of “meanings”: the previous history of punishment in general, the history of its exploitation for the most diverse purposes, finally crystallizes into a kind of unity that is difficult to dissolve, difficult to analyze and—one must emphasize—is completely and utterly undefinable. (Today it is impossible to say for sure why we actually punish: all concepts in which an entire process is semiotically summarized elude definition; only that which has no history is definable.)
GM 2, 13 Translated by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J Swensen

Another thing to consider when reading Nietzsche is that the topic of health and sickness is never treated as something outside of shared experience. As a provocateur, he was constantly crashing the party with questions about how healthy other people were. He also observed that we each have our own systems and that what is good for one may kill another. He never said that there was a point where the greater problem of sickness can be isolated from the one an individual confronts.

Give us a piece of what you like from Hintikka.

Whoa. I didn't mean to challenge you in that way.
I was asking about the questions you asked in this post and if you were interested in the answers for your own sake.

I am still good with my selection, by the way.

So, are you outside of the game, seeing how others would play?

I don't know. Nietzsche was pretty clear about what he opposed that happened in his time and before him. We can discuss his actual words toward that end. Many argue that it didn't hold together as a system. He was pretty darn persistent, nonetheless.

But forgive me if I don't place what he might have objected to in his future in the same category.

Let's start with the matter of whether the slaying of gods included "precluding any sort of causal unity in the world" as brought forward by TheWillowOfDarkness. Are you arguing that observation is incorrect?

I get the agency reflecting agency part of what you are saying.

But what was your interest in asking the question as you did?

I will say that it is an a priori epistemological claim. — Jamesk

That description is difficult for me to understand because I read Kant's intent in separating a priori from a posteriori as the "epistemology." The separation goes toward understanding the "possibility for experience" in the scheme where the intellectual and the sensible are different from each other and behave differently as a result.

Descartes, especially in his account in the Discourse on Method, starts with all his experiences and works on how he can be certain of what he knows. That he reduces that circle to himself and the presumption of a God who isn't just playing with him for laughs is not a step toward explaining the "possibility for experience." Descartes expounded upon the utility of his method (as demonstrated through The Geometry, for instance) for science and practical matters. I think he would have shrugged his shoulders at Hume's skepticism. The central point of the "method" is not to throw up one's hands when something unknown pops up.

The experience of the ego is fundamentally the same as other sensations in the sense that they cannot be escaped by the one who experiences. The differences show up through what gets repeated or not. In that register, Descartes kept showing up in a strikingly different way than other things. He did not explore what that might mean as a principle of explanation. His proof of God amounts to letting others worry about it.

I had a teacher long ago who was asked about this in class (by somebody much smarter than me) and the teacher just lit a cigar and said, well, notice how nobody set Descartes on fire...

Thank you.
I guess this points toward the topic often debated here over whether the Cartesian duality is identical to the one used by Kant and the other "Idealists."

In the context of Descartes' argument in the Meditations, the experience of thinking includes all other perception as equally "self evident" :

But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than before. First Meditation, translated by John Veitch

If we are to apply Kant's terminology to this observation then Descartes is beginning with a synthetic a posteriori judgement of what can only be found through experience and then proceeding to define the "limits to truth" that leads him to objects found through "analytic" demonstration.

The objective is what one can perceive. So, it will always be messed up with other things.
So I see and hear people. They are like me, wanting to understand the the awful things they hear and see.
And that is it. The place where "we" meet.

Or not.

Yes. That sort of thing.
But I will have to reject it on the principles established.
Damn you, remorseless donkey.

I am presently reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It starts with the Devil arguing with Soviet intellectuals about Kant's "proofs" of transcendence. It also presents a story about Pontius Pilate that is "philosophical." So, it is a dark comedy that makes the reader nervous to find out what awful thing will happen next. But, darn it, what happens next?

I think that is a quality that was minted in American Science Fiction through the likes of Kornbluth and Philip K. Dick. And those works were "thought experiments" in the direct sense of the word. Perhaps a genre distinction is needed between the fatalistic observations of Dostoevsky and Kafka and the "what if" of other writers.

I have ordered ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ and ‘The Will to Power’ — Helen G

I just want to point out that The Will to Power is a collection made from notebooks. It is useful as a companion to his finished works. But it is precisely this volume that was published by Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche after Friedrich's death and which many (including Nazis) read instead of his actual books.

The order of reading I recommend is Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The limit of what should be tolerated is a function of how and why the permission is given and by whom. For instance, Popper calls for a limit that is not identical to the one Marcuse argued for. Marcuse puts it this way:

Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails, and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought.

The discussion for both Popper and Marcuse revolves around what is possible for a future society.

But what anyone 'hears'
or 'sees', regarding any connections, should be made explicit - that is a 'thesis' presented. — Amity

Your point is well taken. My reluctance is not an unwillingness to explain how I understand the writing. I just want to encourage reading without already having the topic bracketed between possible interpretations. There are all kinds of ways of reading and I believe it is helpful to learn about them. But I also think it is important to wrestle with works by yourself. Approaching it that way is different from checking if you agree with opinions already expressed by others before you read it. So, suggesting to take note of the interpersonal element in dialogues, both in the topics discussed and the interlocutors discussing stuff is a part of my "interpretation" but you have the opportunity to see it a different way. Many have.

At the risk of getting even more off topic. [ anyone able to connect the dots between willpower, will, the soul and Socrates ? ] — Amity

Well, this is why I brought up the topic of thumos in the previous discussion. The closest parallel I can find between how it was discussed back then and later on is related to the experience of getting really pissed off.

Well, that statement is made at a point of transition between claiming what can be said and then making some claims after addressing those issues. The pointed objections made by Wittgenstein to Frege and Russell is not separable from the discussion of logic and its limits. So my reading suggests to me that the "self" in question keeps having to deal with a certain problem:

5.5303
Roughly speaking, to say of two things that they are
identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is
identical with itself is to say nothing at all.

How much have you read of Nietzsche's work?
Nietzsche's sister helped make the work a thing for the Nazis.
Not to say that one can remove him from the larger question of German philosophy.
You might start by spelling his name correctly.

I wonder if you can show me any examples. I am interested in reading the Republic.
Also fascinating piece of serendipity that we both just talked of 'diagnosis'. — Amity

I thought about different passages to quote but the quality I am singling out is a way to hear what is being said more than a thesis. I argued for a thesis in my previous citations because my interpretation was challenged. Fair enough. But I am more interested in the listening part of my own idea than ruling out other readings.

Rather than prove something, let me suggest the following.

Books 8 and 9 of the Republic address the tyrannical soul, both as something created by certain conditions and what being that kind of thing is like on the level of the individual. Socrates treats the emergence of the tyrant as a product of the Demos and that exposition fits with the "city of words" model that claims the Demos needs to be saved from itself. While reading Book 8, note how the argument is built upon the relationship between father and son. The political is tied with the most intimate relationship of parenting. (leaving aside, for the moment, the glaring lack of any recognition of the other parent).

In parallel to this idea, there are many places where Socrates criticized the plutocracy and much of it happened in fairly subtle ways but also became challenges of the kind that became an argument. One example can be found in Gorgias, especially starting around 517. So, I offer the following from Socrates at 521:
"Socrates: Then distinguish for me what kind of care for the city you recommend to me , that of doing battle with the Athenians, like a doctor, to make them as good as possible, or to serve and minister to their pleasures? Tell me the truth, Callicles, for it is only fair that, as you spoke your mind frankly to me at first, you should continue to say what you think. And so speak up truly and bravely now.
Callicles: I say then, to serve and minister.
Socrates: Then you invite me to play the flatterer?
Callicles: Yes, if you prefer the most offensive term, for if you do not.....
Socrates: Please do not say what you have said so often---that anyone who wishes will slay me, only for me to repeat that, once he has robbed me, he will not know what to do with his spoil, but even as he robbed me unjustly, so too he will make an unjust use of it, and if unjust, shameful, and if shameful, wicked."
Translated by W.D. Woodhead

Anyway, this level of intimidation is also about fathers and sons. It is presented differently than the descriptions in Book 8 of the Republic. But it does connect to why Thrasymachus showed up at a rich man's party.

This implies we have innate knowledge, and that we are not learning but in fact remembering. Is that right? — Form

Zhuangzi describes it quite differently:

His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wen Hui. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest' and the blended notes of the King Shou.' The ruler said, 'Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!' (Having finished his operation), the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Dao, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcase. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones. A good cook changes his knife every year; (it may have been injured) in cutting - an ordinary cook changes his every month - (it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone. There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no (appreciable) thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The blade has more than room enough. Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like (a clod of) earth to the ground. Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath.' The ruler Wen Hui said, 'Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of (our) life.'
Translated by James Legge

The emphasis on following the "natural lines" means the artist is moving outside of oneself as with a dance partner. The partner is "natural" but learning the dance is not a matter of simple intuition. Wu Wei is counter intuitive in regards to responses to resistance and conflict. Sun Tzu's Art of War echoes the Tao Te Ching by noting the skillful avoids conflict by responding to the "smallest of its beginnings" without effort. The need to develop tactics and techniques comes from failing to follow the Tao. But even in failing, one can still keep trying to follow. The adherence leads to better outcomes. We have to unlearn unhelpful reactions on the job. As the Tao Te Ching puts it:

36
WHAT is in the end to be shrunken,
Begins by being first stretched out.
What is in the end to be weakened,
Begins by being first made strong.
What is in the end to be thrown down,
Begins by being first set on high.
What is in the end to be despoiled,
Begins by being first richly endowed.

Herein is the subtle wisdom of life:
The soft and weak overcomes the hard and strong.

Just as the fish must not leave the deeps,
So the ruler must not display his weapons.
Translated by John C.H. Wu

Do you suggest that information is only available through the effort of "I"? And any information learned from you is only information learned from "I". — Form

On the contrary. The emphasis in the text is that what is happening is happening to everybody at the same time. The deflection from being an author of special knowledge is not an argument that the teacher is useless in the situation.

I can show you how to plane wood or knit a sweater. The form of education being presented presumes something else than the teacher is at work when you learn those skills. You may discover the teacher is wrong about a lot of things when you are the art. The teacher went through the same process.

How does one start to talk about this other instructor?

The book does not say the Master never does anything; He does not do what is happening anyway.
So the issue is about replacement of resources.

If "I", (taken for a brief moment as someone who could show you something you do not know that "I" see you do not know) taught you something as if it came from me when it is only available to you through your own efforts, then you will never learn what "I" am doing. Now staying near a resource that keeps knowingly deflecting your attempts to learn on another basis is an "action" when compared to refusing to not being around at all.

I hope that doesn't help. :cool:

That works for me except for the absolutely part.

The "you" can be the horizon of the philosophical;
Sartre talking about consciousness where the ego can always show up but whose attendance is not required.
Zhuangzi showing the limits of the language of control by placing it side by side with the conditions that teach more directly.
Lacan's mirror stage pointing to necessary preconditions that are not explained by development.

To say what are the grounds of experience in an absolute fashion would not be listening to many who say there is something to heard by not talking that way.

Taoist and Buddhist practices have many important divergences regarding the nature of the being who lives "before" the one who deliberates. They do agree, however, that the one who deliberates tends to talk so much that they cannot hear other things.

That is an excellent explanation. Great metaphor.

Spinoza addresses this topic at length in his Note to Proposition 15, "Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God."

hmmm, maybe I do belong here.

I am not sure I understand your question. I don’t think that either depiction is intended to be an accurate depiction of actual souls. — Fooloso4

I think different depictions are supposed to be accurate for the purposes undertaken in each case.
One of the elements that intrigues me about the Socrates/Plato work is, as you say, how it is different for different interlocutors.

In any case, it is rare to find metaphor and mythology mixed freely with observations of what "is" as is done with such abandon in the Republic. I don't think the "noble lie" applies to all the observations made in the Republic. But it influences it in every place.

There are so many indictments of character made in varying levels of subtlety that make me think I am not just being sold a bill of goods but am reading a diagnosis.

I have changed tack. I have other routines than the self destructive one. There were so many opportunities to die that I somehow learned to not take advantage of that I am now 62. No one is more surprised than I am. Put less dramatically, I stopped hurting myself so much and found I hurt other people less as a consequence. I am trying to make the most of my new lease on life.

I hear your narrative of why those routines appear and they make sense of a particular mode of development. There are other ways to frame it that are touched upon by many kinds of psychology. The games people play in the Eric Berne scheme is different from the stages of being a human being as given by Erik Erickson or Abraham Maslov. And then there are thinkers like Nietzsche and Freud, and Reich who focus on elemental drives. Cognitive Behavior therapy dances with Constructive Psychotherapy. Those inform and help me but I decided to respond to the OP question about voices to emphasize the immediacy of any answer. By citing Kafka, I am not signalling defeat. He is encouraging me to continue as I am.

You might find the The Story of Utopias by Lewis Mumford to be interesting.

His thinking cuts across many areas of philosophy and ties them into contemporary problems.

I will check it out someday.
There is a peculiar quality to PK Dick's writing that is at odds with film narratives. Descriptions of fact are woven into supposition and uncertainty. He is naive and impossibly complex at the same time.
In the Minority Report movie, Dick's story line is followed closely but the voice is somehow missing.
Maybe if Kurosawa had had a chance at doing it....

But is that the case when dealing with people who are unjust? — Fooloso4

That is a good question. I think the dialogue wrestled with it in Book Nine where the diagnosis of various polities are compared with states in the soul. The matter is all mixed up with how you live in a particular place. I hear you questioning how complete the Socratic/Plato answer may be to the questions it presents. I don't read it as a last word. Socrates was able to survive his interlocutors, that time. So, in that sense, he did not end the discussion for all time in the fashion Glaucon asked for in Book Two.

The two depictions of the soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus do not match up. Different stories for different occasions. Socrates says the he speaks differently to different men depending on their needs. — Fooloso4

Noted, the depictions do not match up. The difference points to the way the use of allegory and metaphor are put together with observations of what can be observed "psychologically" as matters of experience with no concern whether the different models are congruent to some overriding principle. As a reader, one has a choice. Either what is being presented fits into a particular argument or there is another element, that is skeptical of the idea that one argument can just replace another.

If one held to the latter point of view, how would that be expressed using the logic that only one or another thing can be true at the same time?

In the absence of reason, it seems rather obvious that spirit and desire can form a destructive duo. I don't think Plato disputes this. — Tzeentch

I am not saying that they cannot be a destructive duo. The disinclination of thumos to ally with desires in opposition to reason is one of the ways that we can see that it remains a separate agency. A little further on, Socrates makes your point and mine together:

[440E] “That it’s looking the opposite of the way it did to us just now with the spirited part, because then we imagined it was something having to do with desire, but now we’re claiming that far from that, it’s much more inclined in the faction within the soul to take arms on the side of the reasoning part.” “Absolutely,” he said. “Then is it different from that too, or some form of the reasoning part, so that there aren’t three but two forms in the soul, a reasoning one and a desiring one? Or just as, in the city, there were three classes [441A] that held it together, moneymaking, auxiliary, and deliberative, so too in the soul is there this third, spirited part, which is by nature an auxiliary to the reasoning part, unless it’s corrupted by a bad upbringing?” “It’s necessarily a third part,” he said.
Plato. Republic 440d Translated by Joe Sachs

The importance of seeing them separately comes up in other discussions and I need to pull those elements back together into my tiny mind.

In the course of restating Thrasymachus' argument, Glaucon cites the story of the ring of Gyges which allows unjust actions to go unseen to introduce how "seeming to be just" can conceal crimes. Adimantus takes up the theme in regards to how that becomes an education of the young:

“Socrates, my friend,” he said, “when all these things of such a kind and in such quantity are said about virtue and vice, the sort of esteem in which human beings and gods hold them, what do we imagine it does to the souls of young people who hear them, all those with good natures and equal to the task, as if they were floating above all the things that are said in order to gather from them what sort of person [365B] to be and how to make one’s way through life so that one might go through it the best possible way? From what seems likely, that person would speak to himself as Pindar wrote, ‘Is it by justice or by crooked tricks that I make the wall rise higher’ so as to fortify myself to live my life? For the things that are said claim there’s no benefit for me to be just if I don’t also seem to be, but obvious burdens and penalties, while they describe a divine-sounding life for an unjust person provided with a reputation for justice. [365C] So, since, as those who’re wise show me, ‘the seeming overpowers even the truth’ and is what governs happiness, one should turn completely to that. It’s necessary for me to draw a two-dimensional illusion of virtue in a circle around myself as a front and a show, but drag along behind it the cunning and many-sided fox of the most wise Archilochus.14 “‘But,’ someone says, ‘it’s not easy always to go undetected in being evil.’ Well, we’ll tell him that no other great thing falls into one’s lap either, but [365D] still, if we’re going to be happy, this is the direction we’ve got to go, where the tracks of the argument take us. To go undetected, we’ll band together in conspiracies and secret brotherhoods, and there are teachers of persuasion who impart, for money, skill at speaking to assemblies and law courts, by means of which we’ll use persuasion about some things, but we’ll use force about others, so as to get more than our share of things without paying the penalty.
Plato. Republic (Focus Philosophical Library) 365a Translated by Joe Sachs

The need to find an understanding of justice that is truly beneficial to a person is the only way to counter this form of instruction and way of life.

Regarding the immortal soul, it is spoken of as living in bodies. In Phaedrus, it is put this way:

"And now that we have seen that that which is moved by itself is immortal, we shall feel no scruple in affirming that precisely that is the the essence and definition of soul, to wit, self-motion. Any body that has an external source of motion is soulless, but a body deriving its motion from a source within itself is animate or besouled, which implies that the nature of the soul is what has been said." 245e

This prefaces a discussion of the soul's nature that also uses "parts", namely, the analogy of the winged chariot made up of charioteer and two steeds:

"With us men, in the first place, it is a pair of steeds that the charioteer controls, moreover one of them is noble and good, and of good stock, while the other has the opposite character, and his stock is the opposite. Hence the task of our charioteer is difficult and troublesome." 246b Translated by R Hackworth.

The nature of the soul in someone who is alive is different than what it is in itself. The separability from the body is what is discussed in Phaedo.