But a lyre does need to be tuned. — Metaphysician Undercover
But the harmonies, which are ratios, don't come into existence when the lyre is tuned. They are the same whether there is any lyre or not. — Wayfarer
'Tuned and Untuned'. The tuning of a lyre exists apart from any particular lyre. It is the same relationship between the Equal and things that are equal, and the Beautiful or Just and things that are beautiful or just.
The Tuning of the Lyre exists apart from any particular lyre. The Tuning is the relationship between frequencies of the strings. It is this relationship of frequencies that is used to tune a particular lyre. Analogously, the Tuning of the body exists apart from any particular body, it is the relationship of bodily parts. (edited) — Fooloso4
“… our soul is somewhere else earlier, before she is bound within the body.” (92a)
Dialectic is (friendly) wrestling with each others' convictions — Gary M Washburn
"we have not yet become able to discover" . This final phrase may also be translated as follows: but we have not yet been able to discover that he who is a friend is [i.e., exists]" (Plato's Dialogue on Friendship)
The soul is that which imparts life to the body in the first place (105c - d). Without the soul there would be no body. — Apollodorus
Right, but a lyre is not a living thing. It is not capable of self-movement or self-attunement.
Wayfarer makes an important point: — Fooloso4
With all his talk of opposite forms Socrates neglects to consider Harmonious /Unharmonious or — Fooloso4
The question is why Socrates neglected this argument? — Fooloso4
Second, the argument that the soul is a harmony means that the fate of a particular soul is tied to the fate of a particular body. — Fooloso4
This is why the immaterial soul is prior to the material body. — Metaphysician Undercover
Wayfarer's point explains why we must conclude that the immaterial soul is prior to the material body. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think Socrates neglects this at all. In fact, it is focused on in many dialogues. — Metaphysician Undercover
“ For I am calculating - behold how self-servingly!- that if what I’m saying happens to be true, I’m well off believing it; and if there’s nothing at all for one who’s met his end, well then, I’ll make myself so much less unpleasant with lamenting to those who are present during this time, the time before my death.” (91b)
… our soul is somewhere else earlier, before she is bound within the body.” (92a)
When the mind succumbs to the desires of the body, and is overwhelmed by these desires ... — Metaphysician Undercover
But Socrates demonstrates, by the argument we've been discussing, that this idea, "that the soul is a harmony" is false. — Metaphysician Undercover
But Socrates demonstrates, by the argument we've been discussing, that this idea, "that the soul is a harmony" is false. — Metaphysician Undercover
“Well,” said he, “there is no harmony between the two theories. Now which do you prefer, that knowledge is recollection or that the soul is a harmony?”
“The former, decidedly, Socrates,” he replied. “For this other came to me without demonstration; it merely seemed probable and attractive, which is the reason why many men hold it. I am conscious that those arguments which base their demonstrations on mere probability are deceptive, and if we are not on our guard against them they deceive us greatly, in geometry and in all other things. But the theory of recollection and knowledge has been established by a sound course of argument. For we agreed that our soul before it entered into the body existed just as the very essence which is called the absolute exists (92c – d).
When making comparisons it is useful to see not only similarities but differences. Socratic philosophy proceeds by rational inquiry, by the critical examination of opinion, that is, dialectic. — Fooloso4
The dialectic is the intimation of the worth of time. — Gary M Washburn
But if a broadening lexicon of terms is the entailed result of conserving them, then we can hardly claim this mere sentiment or deny the growing lexicon we share is any less rigorously achieved than the discipline of conserving our premises. — Gary M Washburn
His argument is that Harmony is a universal. What is at issue is the difference between the universal and particular. Harmony itself is prior to any particular thing that is in harmony. — Fooloso4
“...'one could surely use the same argument about the attunement of a lyre and its strings, and say that the attunement is something unseen and incorporeal and very lovely and divine in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are corporeal bodies and composite and earthy and akin to the mortal. Now, if someone smashed the lyre, or severed and snapped its strings, suppose it were maintained, by the same argument as yours, that the attunement must still exist and not have perished-because it would be inconceivable that when the strings had been snapped, the lyre and the strings themselves, which are of mortal nature, should still exist, and yet that the attunement, which has affinity and kinship to the divine and the immortal, should have perished …” (86a-b)
So I thought I must take refuge in discussions and investigate the truth of beings by means of accounts [logoi] … On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true.” (99d-100a)
Wouldn't it be more so and more fully a tuning, if could be tuned more fully, and less so and less fully a tuning if it were tuned less so and less fully? (93b)
Then is this the same with soul? Is one soul, even in the slightest degree, more fully and more so than another, or less fully and less so this very thing - a soul? (93b)
'Then what will any of those who maintain that soul is attunement say these things are, existing in our souls- virtue and vice? Are they, in turn, a further attunement and non-attunement? And is one soul, the good one, tuned, and does it have within itself, being an attunement, a further attunement, whereas the untuned one is just itself, and lacking a further attunement within it?'” (93c)
“'And moreover, since this is her condition, one soul couldn’t partake of vice or of virtue any more fully than another, if in fact vice is to be lack of tuning and virtue tuning?” (93e)
“Therefore it follows from this argument of ours that all souls of all living beings will similarly be good if in fact it’s similarly the nature of souls to be this very thing - souls.” (94a)
The argument about recollection and learning, on the other hand, has been provided by means of a hypothesis worthy of acceptance. Because it was said [at 76e - 77a] I think that it is certain that our soul existed even before it entered a body as that there exists in its own right the being that bears the label "what it is". And I have accepted that hypothesis, or so I convince myself, on both sufficient and correct grounds (92d e).
Do you suppose that, when he [Homer] wrote those words, he thought of the soul as a harmony which would be led by the conditions of the body, and not rather as something fitted to lead and rule them, and itself a far more divine thing than a harmony?”
“By Zeus, Socrates, the latter, I think.”
“Then, my good friend, it will never do for us to say that the soul is a harmony; for we should, it seems, agree neither with Homer, the divine poet, nor with ourselves.”
“That is true,” said he.
In that case, soul is immortal.
Yes, immortal.
Very well, he said. Should we say that this has been proved? What do you think?
Yes, and most sufficiently, Socrates.
... since the soul turns out to be immortal, I think that for someone who believes this to be so, it is both fitting and worth the risk - for fair is the risk - to insist that either what I have said or something like it is true concerning our souls and their dwelling places [in the other world] ... Anyhow, these are the reasons why a man should be confident about his own soul ...
Is this true of the soul? Is one soul even in the slightest degree more completely and to a greater extent a soul than another, or less completely and to a less extent?
inquire and speculate as to what we imagine that journey to be like (61e)
Now being dead is either of two things. For either it is like being nothing and the dead man has no perception of an anything, or else, in accordance with the things that have been said, it happens to be a sort of change and migration of the soul from the place here to another place.
And if in fact there is no perception, but it is like a sleep in which the sleeper has not dream at all, death would be a wondrous gain. (40c-d)
“ For I am calculating - behold how self-servingly!- that if what I’m saying happens to be true, I’m well off believing it; and if there’s nothing at all for one who’s met his end, well then, I’ll make myself so much less unpleasant with lamenting to those who are present during this time, the time before my death.” (91b)
“'There goes Cebes, always hunting down arguments, and not at all willing to accept at once
what anyone may say.'” (63a)
“Socrates, the rest seems to me to be beautifully put, but what you say about the soul induces a lot of distrust in human beings. They fear that the soul, once she is free of the body, is no longer anywhere, and is destroyed and perishes on that very day when a human being dies; and that as soon as she’s free of the body and departs, then, scattered like breath or smoke, she goes fluttering off and is no longer anywhere. Of course, if she could be somewhere, herself by herself, collected together and freed from those evils you went through just now, there'd be a great hope - a beautiful hope - that what you say, Socrates, is true. But this point that the soul is when the human being dies and holds onto both some power and thoughtfulness - probably stands in need of more than a little persuasive talk and assurance.”(70a)
“What you say is true, Cebes, but now what should we do? Or do you want us to tell a more thorough story about these things to see whether what we’re saying is likely or not?””(70a-b)
“ … do the souls of men exist in Hades when they have died, or do they not? Now there's an
ancient doctrine, which we've recalled, that they do exist in that world, entering it from this one, and that they re-enter this world and are born again from the dead; yet if this is so, if living people are born again from those who have died, surely our souls would have to exist in that world? Because they could hardly be born again, if they didn't exist; so it would be sufficient evidence for the truth of these claims, if it really became plain that living people are born from the dead and from nowhere else; but if that isn't so, some other argument would be needed.'”(70c-d)
“And similarly, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake in life were to die, but when they'd died, the dead remained in that form, and didn't come back to life, wouldn't it be quite inevitable that everything would ultimately be dead, and nothing would live? Because if the living things came to be from the other things, but the living things were to die, what could possibly prevent everything from being completely spent in being dead?'” (72 b-d)
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