Claiming this to suggest self-hood as the theme of the dialogue hangs on a pretty slender thread. — Gary M Washburn

It is not that "self-hood" is the theme. In the specific sense what is at issue is what will happen to Socrates, and more broadly what happens to us when we die, what will happen to me myself and you yourself. It is addressed in terms of the soul rather than the self, of a part rather than the whole. Comparing the analysis of the soul in the Republic and Phaedo points to the problem.

It is a dangerous matter, too, to assume Socrates is ever serious about drawing conclusions, other than to discourage them. — Gary M Washburn

I think that Socrates was a zetetic skeptic. I also think that he was aware that this could be a dangerous attitude for most people.

All of which is fraught with often hidden baggage. — Gary M Washburn

All of what? 1) I pointed to an ambiguity that as far as I can tell you did not address. 2) I said this ambiguity was ironic. 3) I mentioned a few ways in which we talk and think about the soul and the self. But your statement was in the singular:

It is not how we speak or think or understand each other. — Gary M Washburn

Do you include your response as being fraught with hidden baggage? Is that comment applicable to language as a whole or to specific unidentified statements in this thread?

But convention has it that holding firm to convictions, or ultimately achieving convictions resistant to critique is a virtue and goal. — Gary M Washburn

That may be, but what is true by convention is not the same as what may be true for all participants in this thread.

I suppose it may seem an irony that I may seem convinced of this. — Gary M Washburn

The irony that I saw was that you talked of understanding each other, but I have not understood much of what you have said and you have done little to clarify. In addition, although you are fond of speaking in generalities, if any of your comments were directed specifically at me, I suspect you have not understood me either.

But according to my Liddell and Scott, psyche is breath. Seeing spirit in it seems 'vaporous'. — Gary M Washburn

Well, I think my LSJ shows very clearly that the primary meaning of ψυχή psyche is “life” and, by extension, “soul” exactly as Socrates says.

In addition:

Hom. usage gives little support to the derivation from ψύχω 'blow, breathe'; “τὸν δὲ λίπε ψ.” Il.5.696 means 'his spirit left his body', and so λειποψυχέω means 'swoon', not 'become breathless'

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=yuxh%5Cn&la=greek&can=yuxh%5Cn0&prior=th\n&d=Perseus:text:1999.01.0169:text=Phaedo:section=64c&i=1#Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=yuxh/-contents

But here are some examples from the Phaedo:

1. “Then,” said he, “when does the soul attain to truth?” 65b
2. “if we are ever to know anything absolutely, we must be free from the body and must behold the actual realities with the eye of the soul alone” 66d – e
3. “But perhaps no little argument and proof is required to show that when a man is dead the soul still exists and has any power and intelligence.” 70b
4. “And such a soul is weighed down by this and is dragged back into the visible world, through fear of the invisible and of the other world” 81c
5. “philosophy, taking possession of the soul when it is in this state, encourages it gently and tries to set it free … and exhorting it to collect and concentrate itself within itself, and to trust nothing except itself and its own abstract thought of abstract existence; and to believe that there is no truth in that which it sees by other means” 83b

So, in your opinion, "breath" attains to truth; we behold with the eye of "breath"; "breath" has power and intelligence; "breath" fears the invisible and the other world; philosophy takes hold of the "breath", etc, etc.?

In the Greek original ψυχή psyche “soul” occurs about 80 times:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?q=yu%2Fxw&target=greek&doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0169&expand=lemma&sort=docorder

IMHO even if it were used in the sense of “soul” just in the five examples above, this would still indicate that it was used by Socrates in the sense of “soul”.

Beginning your reply with "I'd like to make it helpful, but I'm afraid of what commitments you might have to convention that might interfere with the effort." is a pompous observation that does not advance your point of view.

Personal character was the engine of ideas, and Socrates found in this participation the engine of reality itself. — Gary M Washburn

Perhaps you could assemble the texts that encourage this point of view. I suppose the view is a part of you saying: "The personal character each of us brings to the recognition of terms separates subject and predicate from each other in the person of that discipline. Reason is personal, not an impersonal mechanics."

The "predicate" in the Dialogues is constantly being challenged as something given on the basis of matters far from the personal. In Cratylus, Parmenides, and the Philebus, overconfidence in what a thing "is" becomes the fulcrum for arguing for something else. And the interlocutors are treating Socrates as the unconventional one. It kind of sounds like the opposite of what you are arguing.

The first is true independent of any instrument. The second is true of a particular instrument. The first is about the ratio of frequencies. The second about whether those relations are achieved on a particular instrument. — Fooloso4

The second is always true regardless of the instrument. That's what I've been explaining to you, the temporal aspect of Socrates' argument. The harmony is the effect of, therefore caused by, the appropriate tuning. It does not direct the tuning. That's what Socrates is saying, a harmony does not direct the parts which it is composed of, to create itself. This is the key point, what directs the tuning is the mind with some mathematical principles, and harmony is the result, or effect of that direction. The soul is more like the thing which does the directing, therefore the cause of the tuning, rather than the result of the tuning, the result being the harmony itself, which is produced.

In the Republic the problem is not between the parts of the body and the soul but which part of the soul. The answer is reason. In addition, appetites are treated as a part of the soul and not the body. The conflict is within the soul, not between soul and body. Also the soul in the Republic has parts but in the Phaedo it is denied that it has parts. — Fooloso4

We are discussing the Phaedo here. Do you agree that Socrates' argument is that the soul is more like the thing which directs the parts, as the cause of harmony, rather than like the harmony which is the result, or effect of being so directed. If you agree that this is Socrates' argument, do you also agree with this principle in general?

By the end of the fifth century — the time of Socrates' death — soul is standardly thought and spoken of, for instance, as the distinguishing mark of living things, as something that is the subject of emotional states and that is responsible for planning and practical thinking, and also as the bearer of such virtues as courage and justice. Coming to philosophical theory, we first trace a development towards comprehensive articulation of a very broad conception of soul, according to which the soul is not only responsible for mental or psychological functions like thought, perception and desire, and is the bearer of moral qualities, but in some way or other accounts for all the vital functions that any living organism performs. This broad conception, which is clearly in close contact with ordinary Greek usage by that time, finds its fullest articulation in Aristotle's theory.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/ — Apollodorus

I think that the soul can be interpreted as 'the principle of unity' which manifests as the 'subjective unity of perception'. This is the fact that, even though the body is obviously manifold, comprising billions of cellular systems in interaction with each other, the self or soul appears as a simple unity. The subjective unity of perception is a topic in its own right, which also appears in neuroscience as an aspect of the neural binding problem: 'enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience.'

(This is also comparable with Kant's and Husserl's conception of the 'transcendental ego'.)

The epistemological issue is that this principle of unity is not something that exists on the objective plane; it is not an object of perception; it can't be discerned objectively. It is conceptually nearer to 'harmony', as has been discussed in relation to the analogy of the lyre, in the sense that it is a consequence of the dynamic balance of a number of otherwise discrete factors to generate a (transcendent) whole, allegorically like the sounding of a chord (hence the allegory.)

Was Soc. a Hindu? — Gary M Washburn

That is not a silly question. No, not a Hindu, but part of an ancient Indo-European culture that had spread across the ancient world into both India and Europe in pre-history, giving rise to those disparate but connected societies. For example, the gods of the Greek pantheon have counterparts in the Hindu pantheon. This is the subject of a very interesting book, The Shape of Ancient Thought, by Thomas MacEvilly, an art historian, which details many such commonalities. Orphism, which was familiar to both Plato and Socrates, is arguably representative of the Indo-European ‘ur-religion’ which also gave rise to the Vedas. Belief in re-incarnation is intrinsic to those religions, and was arguably a source of the ‘myths’ concerning the afterlife that Socrates refers to.

MacEvilly’s views are not mainstream, but he provides abundant scholarly evidence for them.

The harmony is the effect of, therefore caused by, the appropriate tuning. — Metaphysician Undercover

The harmony is the tuning. The analogy with the lyre is with a lyre that is tuned (86a), not a lyre that needs to be tuned. The organic body is an arrangement of parts. They do not first exist in an untuned condition and subsequently become tuned. A living thing exists as an arrangement of parts. An organism is organized.

This is the key point, what directs the tuning is the mind with some mathematical principles, and harmony is the result, or effect of that direction. — Metaphysician Undercover

The assumption is that the mind or soul exists independently of the body. That is what is in question. All of the arguments for that have failed.

The soul is more like the thing which does the directing, therefore the cause of the tuning, rather than the result of the tuning, the result being the harmony itself, which is produced. — Metaphysician Undercover

The argument proposed by Simmias is that it is neither what tunes or is tuned. It is the condition of a self-organized body.

Do you agree that Socrates' argument is that the soul is more like the thing which directs the parts — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, that is the argument, but it assumes the very thing in question, the existence of the soul independent of the body, that they are two separate things. (86c) The attunement argument is that they are not. But Simmias had already agreed that the soul existed before the body. It is on that basis that Socrates attacks that argument. In evaluating the argument we do not have to assume the pre-existence of the soul.

Not so much by inquiry as by interrogation. I'm sorry if I peg anyone with views they do not really hold, but responses to my views often put me on the defensive. But, if I take your meaning correctly, the implication is that Socrates is promoting an individuality that only develops later, during the Christian era, to ensnare people into faith by isolating them from social life and from this 'vale of tears' with only the Christian god(s) to find succor in. Remember, he was a dialectician.

Don't forget Egypt. Hindus, of course, believed in Karma, but the Egyptian concept of a soul living after death was closer to home for Athenians, and explicitly referenced in at least one dialogue of Plato (Timeus). In my callow youth I had the luck of finding a place across the street from the MFA in Boston, which has an extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts. This may well be a misreading on my part, but it seems to me that much of the art from tombs was crude, as if made by the working people represented in it. If this is right, then it's reasonable to suggest they did this not as an offering only, but also to get a place among the Pharaoh's household, to be elevated into the next life as a necessary entourage. If so, then the great monuments of Egypt were a kind of supplication to win acceptance by the gods as deserving of a place amongst them, and therefore as a sort of social contract to win a place in the afterlife for all who participated in their construction. In any case, elevation to divinity for humans of special note was very much part of the Greek pantheon.

In Gorgias, Socrates explains how a predicate is a similarity in difference. Taking a predication to signify a sameness from which we can infer further sameness is missing the foundational difference. Wherever Socrates feels his interlocutor is expressing a view derived from elsewhere or merely a mechanical or formal inference he insists upon a more honestly personal view. He gets impatient when others refer to texts or sources not present and participating. Why, if meaning is fixed outside its personal context?

if I take your meaning correctly — Gary M Washburn

You don't. On the one hand, by dividing Socrates into two, body and soul, Socrates himself cannot be found. On the other hand, the arguments for an immortal soul all fail, but further, the idea of an independent soul is incoherent.

if any of your comments were directed specifically at me, I suspect you have not understood me either. — Fooloso4

From this it could be inferred that you do not want me addressing you. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I'm prone to social malapropisms. Thing is, the whole issue, really, is how do we suppose we understand each other at all? It's really bogus to suppose there is some lexical field that supports this. There is always some slippage of meaning between us, and our talking extensively grinds against this difference, subtly altering every term of our exchange and whatever understanding we share. Subterranean to the lexicon true believers in objectivity would insist upon, it is a problematic matter to bring it to light.

Exactly, but reason only works by division. There is no valid induction. And so, it is only by extending that division toward the moment it becomes impossible to ignore the difference meant to be excluded from it that we recognize the missing participation of that difference. It is how we help each other come to that recognition that is the engine of terms we do share.

From this it could be inferred that you do not want me addressing you. — Gary M Washburn

Quite the opposite! It would be helpful if you would be more specific regarding who you are addressing what you are commenting on.

As I said above:

I am not sure if this is intended as a criticism of what I said or if what I said is being pointed to in support of your claim about how we speak or think or understand each other. — Fooloso4

how do we suppose we understand each other at all? — Gary M Washburn

This is a problem. It is for this reason that I attempt to write simply and clearly, but, of course, misunderstanding still happens.

It's really bogus to suppose there is some lexical field that supports this. — Gary M Washburn

Right, but the possibility of being misunderstood is the condition within which we communicate. I don't think anyone here assumes anything different.

Exactly, but reason only works by division. — Gary M Washburn

That is only half the story (pun intended). Reason does not work only by division.

to ignore the difference meant to be excluded — Gary M Washburn

What is it that you think is meant to be excluded here?

Your point is well taken that Socrates demands direct engagement with ideas from his interlocutors and eschews arguments based upon authority.
It is also true the conversations between say, Socrates and Cebes in the Phaedo and Socrates and Theodorus in the Theaetatus, are shaped by the degrees of mutual understanding possible between one and the other.

On the other hand, so much of the work of Socrates was to question what "personal" expressions of experience might mean seen against the background of our world.

There is the drubbing of Protagoras in Theaetatus claiming "man is the measure of all things."

In the Philebus, Socrates influences the views of Protarchus concerning the centrality of pleasure in human experience by prefacing his argument thusly:

"Well then, Protarchus, don't let us shut our eyes to the variety that attaches to your good as to mine. Let us have the varieties fairly before us and make a bold venture in the hope that they may, on inspection, reveal whether we ought to give the title of the good to pleasure or to intelligence or to some third thing. For I imagine we are not striving merely to secure a victory for my suggestions or for yours; rather we ought both of us fight in support of the truth and the whole truth."
-translated by R. Hackworth, section: 14 b

In the Cratylus, Socrates moves Hermogenes to accept that the meaning of names is neither completely arbitrary or necessary. In the latter part of the dialogue, Socrates argues with Cratylus about the importance of the original "namers', saying:

"Socrates: Well, but do you not see, Cratylus, that he who follows names in the search after things, and analyzes their meaning, is in great danger of being deceived?
Cratylus: How so?
Socrates: Why clearly he who first gave names gave them according to his conception of the things which they signified?
Cratylus: True
Socrates: And if his conception was erroneous, and he gave names according to his conception, in what position shall we who are his followers find themselves? Shall we not be deceived by him?
-translated by Benjamin Jowett, section 436a

There are many other ways to portray the demand for a universal truth over other kinds but I will stop here to see what you say in response.

What is it that you think is meant to be excluded here? — Fooloso4

The stranger. And not just the stranger you may think I am to your terms, or terms you take to be common enough to us all to be relied upon as a rough coordination of discourse, but the stranger you are, as we all are, in that reliance. Socrates is succeeded by the stranger. In Laws his effort to normalize normativity fails in the end, and something all too human undoes the whole project. Normativity, familiarity, just isn't as real as the stranger we all are to it. Not that law is corrupting or untruth, but that what becomes known unduly excluded from it through a diligent adherence to it is more real still.

On the other hand, the arguments for an immortal soul all fail, but further, the idea of an independent soul is incoherent. — Fooloso4

So, you don’t accept the idea of ‘the soul as the principle of unity’?

The epistemological issue is that this principle of unity is not something that exists on the objective plane; it is not an object of perception; it can't be discerned objectively. It is conceptually nearer to 'harmony', as has been discussed in relation to the analogy of the lyre, in the sense that it is a consequence of the dynamic balance of a number of otherwise discrete factors to generate a (transcendent) whole, allegorically like the sounding of a chord (hence the allegory.) — Wayfarer

Sure. However, the allegory does not refer to the sound. Harmonia here does not have the sense of sound but of state or condition (of being joined together), that renders the instrument capable of producing sound, i.e. a harmony of the component parts of the lyre.

Simmias' mistake is to hold that the soul is a harmony of the constituent parts of the body. It is this that leads him to make the analogy.

That this is how harmonia is intended is clear from Socrates’ statement at 92a - b:

And Socrates said: “You must, my Theban friend, think differently, if you persist in your opinion that a harmony is a compound and that the soul is a harmony made up of the elements that are strung like harpstrings in the body. For surely you will not accept your own statement that a composite harmony existed before those things from which it had to be composed, will you?”
“Certainly not, Socrates.”

The soul pre-existing the body, it cannot be compared to the harmony of the lyre that only comes into being after its components have been assembled.

The soul being non-composite, it cannot be compared to a harmony that is composite.

The soul being devoid of degrees, it cannot be compared to a harmony that has degrees, etc., etc.

Simmias’ theory fails from the start. That’s why Socrates mocks the idea at 86d.

Then Socrates, looking keenly at us, as he often used to do, smiled and said: “Simmias raises a fair objection. Now if any of you is readier than I, why does he not reply to him? For he seems to score a good point.

the allegory does not refer to the sound. — Apollodorus

It’s an allegory or metaphor. I take it that ‘the harmonious soul’ is one purged of impurity.

Well, the difficulty is that if the soul is non-composite as Socrates says, then it cannot be a harmony.

Discovering the stranger we more truly are to the means of our enduring life, and to the disciplined engagement of ideas through which we urge each other to reexamine our convictions, is only possible through that disciplined interaction. Yes, Socrates has no patience with those who would obviate it. But amongst these are those who are so convinced of their discipline that the stranger at the beginning and the end of it is completely excluded. That stranger is moment, as Socrates suggests in Parmenides, where the suggestion is dismissed.

There is no valid inductive term. Induction, such as it is, is but the momentary disarray of all ideas before and at the end of our straining to sustain our conviction that logical terms are constants, that motivates us, because the moment of bewilderment or wonder (recognition of the stranger we are to that constancy) is unendurable, to grasp any straw of normativity by which we can imagine enduring life and the terms of rational constancy. But that moment is the differing of all terms, in the character of the discipline that brought us to that change. And insofar as we inspire that discipline in each other that change in that character, the strangest of all because complete character of change each is to it, cannot exclude us from each other, as the conviction in the constancy of rational terms always does. There is no moment reason ever is. Wonder so complete only the stranger is present to it cannot be fodder for rational extension or even epistemic observation. but if we help bring each other to the moment in the personal terms of the discipline we each bring to that moment we recognize each other more intimately and urgently there than we can ever obviate. And if that intimacy grows as we interact in the life of ideas, that intimacy is always becoming more real than our conviction in the constancy of the terms of reason. And this even if we continually differ.

Well, the difficulty is that if the soul is non-composite as Socrates says, then it cannot be a harmony. — Apollodorus

I see what you mean.

Given your concern with division I would think you would make a distinction between the different strangers in the dialogues, terminology that is in one way or another strange, and being strange to ourselves and others. Instead you run them all together.

It is through diaeresis that the Stranger in the Statesman arrives at man as a featherless biped, or, as Diogenes of Sinope would have it, a plucked chicken.

The Stranger does not "succeed" Socrates, he is shown to be inferior. In addition, the Eleatic Stranger of the Statesman is not identified as the same stranger, the Athenian Stranger of the Laws. The Laws is about nomos, laws and customs. The whole project is not undone by something all to human, it is fundamentally about what is all too human.

So, you don’t accept the idea of ‘the soul as the principle of unity’? — Wayfarer

No, I don't think it is a principle of unity but a physical unity (86c). This answer is rejected, as Simmias points out, because it means that the destruction of the body is death, that there is no separate soul that endures.

On the one hand, by dividing Socrates into two, body and soul, Socrates himself cannot be found. On the other hand, the arguments for an immortal soul all fail, but further, the idea of an independent soul is incoherent. — Fooloso4

From an encyclopedia article on the Phaedo:

Known to ancient commentators by the title On the Soul, the dialogue presents no less than four arguments for the soul’s immortality.

So, it's your view that none of the arguments succeed?

Well, the difficulty is that if the soul is non-composite as Socrates says, then it cannot be a harmony. — Apollodorus

Yes, you're correct, I read the whole passage again. The argument about harmony being an analogy for the soul is dismissed.

So, it's your view that none of the arguments succeed? — Wayfarer

Yup. Note that in the middle of the dialogue is the problem of misologic. At 107b Socrates tells them to keep investigating, to not be content with the arguments as they stand.

I don't know. It seems like you take the "discipline" needed for granted. Socrates does not seem to take efforts of those kind for granted. It is a rare moment when he simply concedes a point of view.

In any case, I don't recognize my comment in your reply. It does not appear worthy of effort from your point of view.

Correct:

[Socrates] Then, my good friend, it will never do for us to say that the soul is a harmony (94e) … [Cebes] you conducted this argument against harmony wonderfully and better than I expected. For when Simmias was telling of his difficulty, I wondered if anyone could make head against (95a) his argument; so it seemed to me very remarkable that it could not withstand the first attack of your argument …. (95b)

But in connection to other comments that have been made here, I think it is important to note that at 70a Cebes requests “reassurance (paramythia) and proof (pistis)” and this is exactly what Socrates provides throughout the dialogue: he successfully uses both reasoned arguments and myths to make his point. In addition to reasoned argument, he uses exhortation (παραμυθία paramythia from παρά para + μῦθος mythos), i.e. speech or narrative for the purpose of persuading.

The arguments (1) from opposites, (2) from recollection, (3) from affinity, and (4) from the Form of Life are all accepted in the dialogue.

Immortality or existence of the souls of the dead, the cycle of death and rebirth or reincarnation, the souls’ existence in Hades, are accepted as facts as early as 72d:

… “I think, Cebes,” said he, “it is absolutely so, and we are not deluded in making these admissions, but the return to life is an actual fact, and it is a fact that the living are generated from the dead and that the souls of the dead exist …