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.

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?

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 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.

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 …

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. — Fooloso4

But he seems, in the end, to believe, himself, in the immortality of the soul, even if it cannot be proven.

“All, I think,” said Socrates, “would agree that God and the Principle of life, and anything else that is immortal, can never perish.” — 106d

Cebes [107a] “I have nothing more to say against that, and I cannot doubt your conclusions."

I don't think this admits any doubt.

Simmias expresses reservations, to which in part the reply is:

“But my friends,” he said, “we ought to bear in mind,[107c] that, if the soul is immortal, we must care for it, not only in respect to this time, which we call life, but in respect to all time, and if we neglect it, the danger now appears to be terrible. For if death were an escape from everything, it would be a boon to the wicked, for when they die they would be freed from the body and from their wickedness together with their souls. But now, since the soul is seen to be immortal, it cannot escape [107d] from evil or be saved in any other way than by becoming as good and wise as possible.

For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together; then they are judged and depart to the other world [107e] with the guide whose task it is to conduct thither those who come from this world; and when they have there received their due and remained through the time appointed, another guide brings them back after many long periods of time. And the journey is not as Telephus says in the play of Aeschylus; [108a] for he says a simple path leads to the lower world, but I think the path is neither simple nor single, for if it were, there would be no need of guides, since no one could miss the way to any place if there were only one road.

But really there seem to be many forks of the road and many windings; this I infer from the rites and ceremonies practiced here on earth. Now the orderly and wise soul follows its guide and understands its circumstances; but the soul that is desirous of the body, as I said before, flits about it, and in the visible world for a long time, [108b] and after much resistance and many sufferings is led away with violence and with difficulty by its appointed genius. And when it arrives at the place where the other souls are, the soul which is impure and has done wrong, by committing wicked murders or other deeds akin to those and the works of kindred souls, is avoided and shunned by all, and no one is willing to be its companion or its guide.

An essay says 'Commentators commonly refer to this story as a “myth,” and Socrates himself describes it this way (using the Greek word muthos at 110b, which earlier on in the dialogue (61b) he has contrasted with logos, or “argument.”). Readers should be aware that for the Greeks myth did not have the negative connotations it often carries today, as when we say, for instance, that something is “just a myth” or when we distinguish myth from fact.'

So, I find it implausible that the dialogue fails to establish Socrates' belief in the immortality of the soul, although I do agree that Socrates might accept that he can't prove it. But I wonder if you think that 'the arguments must fail' because you yourself can't see how the soul can exist - that It seems an anachronistic or archaic idea, or wishful thinking. My views are different - I will acknowledge that I am probably more on the religious side of the ledger - but at the same time, I want to try and understand the metaphysics in such a way that it is credible in the modern context, which is what I sought to do in the post on the soul as the 'principle of unity'.

Not all statements being made here are correct. For example, the statement "At 107b Socrates tells them to keep investigating, to not be content with the arguments as they stand" is a Straussian straw man.

What Socrates actually says, is that they should consider the hypotheses more clearly and if they do this well enough they will follow the argument and when the argument becomes clear they will have nothing further to seek:

And if you analyze them completely, you will, I think, follow and agree with the argument, so far as it is possible for man to do so. And if this is made clear, you will seek no farther.”
“That is true,” he said.

And just a few lines down, at 107c, Socrates says :

But now, since the soul is seen to be immortal, it cannot escape from evil or be saved in any other way than by becoming as good and wise as possible. For the soul takes with it to the other world nothing but its education and nurture, and these are said to benefit or injure the departed greatly from the very beginning of his journey thither. And so it is said that after death, the tutelary genius of each person, to whom he had been allotted in life, leads him to a place where the dead are gathered together; then they are judged and depart to the other world ...

This is a book on my must-get-around-to-reading list.

Let's not forget that there's room for a diversity of opinion. I've gotten a lot from this thread from reading and debating the dialogue.

But he seems, in the end, to believe, himself, in the immortality of the soul, even if it cannot be proven. — Wayfarer

See the following:

I won’t put my heart into making what I say seem to be true to those present, except as a side effect, but into making it seem to be the case to me myself as much as possible.” (91a).

He goes on tho say:

“ 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) — Fooloso4

Saying that he would be well of believing it is true in case it happens to be true is quite different than saying he believes it to be true.

Simmias says he has some lingering distrust:

“I myself have no remaining grounds for doubt after what has been said; nevertheless, in view of the bigness and importance of our subject and my low opinion of human weakness, I am bound still to have some lingering distrust within myself about what we have said.” (107b)

Socrates responds:

“Not only that, Simmias. What you say is good, but also our very first hypotheses - even if to all of you they’re trustworthy - must nevertheless be looked into for greater surety. And if you sort them out sufficiently, you will, as I think, be following up the argument as much as its possible for human beings to follow it. And should this very thing become sure, you’ll search no further.” (107b)

Socrates is telling them that they should not be so ready to accept what is said as the truth. There seems to be a play on a double sense of human weakness, the limits of human argument and Simmias’ ongoing concern that death means our destruction, that we are too weak to endure. There is a limit we human beings cannot go beyond. That limit occurs at death. The search ends only with surety, but surety cannot be found in life.

And regarding the final myth:

“No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places …” (114d)

To risk the belief is not the same as simply believing.

The one thing that seems certain is that he is not afraid to die.

The one thing that seems certain is that he is not afraid to die. — Fooloso4

For you which you think that the text offers no real explanation?

There is a limit we human beings cannot go beyond. That limit occurs at death. The search ends only with surety, but surety cannot be found in life. — Fooloso4

There is certainly nothing of what we would accept as empirical proof, but that says as much about our beliefs and standards as it does about Socrates'. But he thinks it is 'fitting' - suitable, reasonable - even if it can't be proven to a 'sensible' man.

The question as to why Socrates is not afraid of dying arises early in the dialogue.

Socrates provides several reasons for his calm attitude in the face of imminent death:

The soul is different from the body and death is nothing but the separation of soul from body. (64c)

A virtuous soul will enjoy a happy life in the other world (Hades), which is a much better place, ruled by better and wiser Gods and inhabited by more noble souls. (63c)

Socrates also makes some important statements regarding philosophy:

The philosophical life is a preparation for death. (64a, 67e)

Philosophy encourages the separation of soul from body through the acquisition of wisdom and direct access to non-physical realities represented by the Forms. (65a -d)

Now true philosophers (those who truly love wisdom) practice dying. They are at odds with the body and desire to have the soul alone by itself. It would be extremely irrational for them not to cheerfully go to that place where they hope to attain the object of their life-long love, namely, wisdom (phronesis). (67e – 68a), etc., etc.

The harmony is the tuning. — Fooloso4

A harmony is a group of notes played together, like a chord, which are judged as sounding good. This is why I do not like your interpretation of the work. The tuning is what creates or produces the harmony as cause of it. It is not the harmony.

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. — Fooloso4

Right. Now do you see that this "arrangement of parts", which constitutes "the organic body", is analogous to a harmony. The organic body is an harmonic arrangement of parts. Now, Socrates' argument is that the soul is what directs the parts in such a way as to be an harmonic arrangement of parts. This thing "the soul", which directs the arrangement of parts, is temporally prior to the arrangement of parts, as the cause of it. Since the arrangement of parts is the organic body, then the soul is prior to the body.

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. — Fooloso4

Since the body only exists as an organized arrangement of parts, and the soul is the cause of that organized arrangement, then it is necessarily prior in time to it, therefore independent of the body, at that prior time.

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. — Fooloso4

The argument is that a harmony, or "attunement", whatever you want to call it, requires a cause. The cause is prior to the harmony, in time, and therefore existed independently of it at that prior time. The body is analogous to the harmony, as an organized arrangement of parts. The soul is the cause of that organized arrangement of parts. Therefore the soul was independent of the body at that prior time.

The argument is that a harmony, or "attunement", whatever you want to call it, requires a cause. The cause is prior to the harmony, in time, and therefore existed independently of it at that prior time. The body is analogous to the harmony, as an organized arrangement of parts. The soul is the cause of that organized arrangement of parts. Therefore the soul was independent of the body at that prior time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Socrates advances several arguments against Simmias’ harmony analogy.

One of them is that 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. (92c)

But there are others, for example:

The soul being devoid of degrees, it cannot be compared to a harmony that has degrees. (93b)

The soul leading the body, it cannot be compared to a harmony that depends on the body of the instrument. (94d)

And, of course, the soul being non-composite, it cannot be compared to a harmony that is composite in the first place.

Socrates’ argument does not depend on the pre-existence of soul. Even if the soul's pre-existence is not assumed, Simmias’ analogy still fails.

This is precisely why Socrates smiles at the analogy (86d) and Cebes points out that it failed to withstand Socrates’ first attack of it (95b)

Now, Socrates' argument is that the soul is what directs the parts in such a way as to be an harmonic arrangement of parts — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not Simmias' argument. Note the following:

For I certainly suppose, Socrates, that you've gathered that we take the soul to be just this sort of thing - that while our body is strung and held together by warm and cold and dry and wet and the like, our soul is as it were, a blend and tuning of these very things, whenever, that is, they're blended with one another in a beautiful and measured way. (86c)

By "we take" he means the Pythagoreans.

The argument is that a harmony, or "attunement", whatever you want to call it, requires a cause. — Metaphysician Undercover

That is not what Simmias' argument says. And according to Socrates' argument, the soul does not cause the body that is strung and held together by warm and cold and dry and wet and the like

There are three issues under discussion with regard to Simmias' or the Pythagorean argument for attunement.

1) Simmias' argument
2) Socrates' refutation
3) An argument consistent with the Forms.

Simmias' argument was presented in my last post. The argument consistent with the Forms is neglected:

Things that are beautiful are so, according to the hypothesis of Forms, they are so because of Beauty itself. In the same way, things that are harmonious are so because of Harmony itself. Beauty and Harmony are the cause of things that are beautiful and harmonious. This extends to the human body. It is not the soul that causes the body to be harmonious, it is Harmony.

There is nothing in Simmias' Pythagorean argument about a separate pre-existing soul. Socrates introduces it into Simmias' argument when he reminds Simmias that they had previously agreed that the soul was something pre-existing. But there was no one there to remind Socrates of his own hypothesis of Forms.

He will, however, call the hypothesis of Forms an "ignorant" answer and propose a new sophisticated answer that is much like the sophisticated answer he rejected in favor of Forms. (105b-c)