Phaedo
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Phaedo in the Greek text edited by John Burnet, with Harold North Fowler's English translation.
Section 57
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Section 59
Section 60
Section 61
Section 62
Section 63
Section 64
Section 65
Section 66
Section 67
Section 68
Section 69
Section 70
Section 71
Section 72
Section 73
Section 74
Section 75
Section 76
Section 77
Section 78
Section 79
Section 80
Section 81
Section 82
Section 83
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Section 85
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Section 93
Phaedo. Do you think a harmony or any other composite thing can be in any other state than that in which the elements are of which it is composed?Certainly not.And it can neither do nor suffer anything other than they do or suffer?He agreed.Then a harmony cannot be expected to lead the elements of which it is composed, but to follow them.He assented.A harmony, then, is quite unable to move or make a sound or do anything else that is opposed to its component parts.Quite unable, said he.Well then, is not every harmony by nature a harmony according as it is harmonized?I do not understand, said Simmias.Would it not, said Socrates, be more completely a harmony and a greater harmony if it were harmonized more fully and to a greater extent, assuming that to be possible, and less completely a harmony and a lesser harmony if less completely harmonized and to a less extent?Certainly.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?Not in the least, said he.Well now, said he, one soul is said to possess sense and virtue and to be good, and another to possess folly and wickedness and to be bad; and is this true? Yes, it is true.Now what will those who assume that the soul is a harmony say that these things—the virtue and the wickedness—in the soul are? Will they say that this is another kind of harmony and a discord, and that the soul, which is itself a harmony, has within it another harmony and that the other soul is discordant and has no other harmony within it?I cannot tell, replied Simmias, but evidently those who make that assumption would say some thing of that sort.But we agreed, said Socrates, that one soul is no more or less a soul than another; and that is equivalent to an agreement that one is no more and to no greater extent, and no less and to no less extent, a harmony than another, is it not? Certainly.And that which is no more or less a harmony, is no more or less harmonized. Is that so? Yes.But has that which is no more and no less harmonized any greater or any less amount of harmony, or an equal amount? An equal amount.Then a soul, since it is neither more nor less a soul than another, is neither more nor less harmonized.That is so.And therefore can have no greater amount of discord or of harmony? No.And therefore again one soul can have no greater amount of wickedness or virtue than another, if wickedness is discord and virtue harmony?