Greco 1996 Plato's Cyclical Argument

Plato's Cyclical Argument for the Immortality
of the Soul*
by Anna Greco (Columbus)
Introduction
Plato's Phaedo contains four different arguments for the immortality

of the soul. The first of these, known as the "Cyclical Argument", oc-
curs at 70c4-72e2. Its central claim is that the living come from the
dead or, as J. Wolfe has concisely put it, that "every incarnation is a
reincarnation".1 Thus the soul's existence is marked by a 'cycle' in
which it alternates between coming-to-be united with and separated
from some body. In turn, this claim is meant to support the idea that
the soul does not perish with the body at the time of the person's death.
The Cyclical Argument is commonly considered to be the weakest of
all the arguments for the immortality of the soul that Plato ever gives
— whether in the Phaedo or elsewhere. Among its harshest critics, J.
Wolfe held that, whether valid or invalid, it does not establish the im-
mortality of the soul but at best "would succeed in proving bodily and
only bodily survival!"2 Other critics, like C. J. F. Williams and D. Gal-
lop, believe the argument to be question-begging on the ground that it
unduly presupposes a distinction between living and existing.3 J.
Barnes has claimed that the argument "concerns itself exclusively with
prenatal death and existence; and from that nothing follows about post
mortem death and existence", so that "even if it is sound, it proves
* I have benefited from discussions with John McDowell, James Lennox, Jennifer
Whiting, and Peter King. I am also grateful to David Gallop, Cass Weller, and
Edwin Curley for their detailed comments.
1
J. Wolfe, "Plato's Cyclical Argument for Immortality", Seventh Inter-American
Congress of Philosophy - Proceedings, Quebec 1967, vol. 2, (pp. 251 -54), p. 251.
2
J. Wolfe, "A Note on Plato's 'Cyclical Argument' in the Phaedo", Dialogue 5
(1966), (pp. 237 f.) p. 238.
3 C. J.F. Williams ("On Dying", Philosophy 4 (1969), pp. 217-30) pp.220f.; D.
Gallop, [11 Plato's Phaedo, translated with notes, Oxford 1975, pp. 105 f., and also
[2] "Plato's 'Cyclical Argument' Recycled", Phronesis 27 (1982), pp. 207-22 at
p. 216.
Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 78. Bd., S. 225-252

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226 Anna Greco
nothing of any eschatological interest".4 As the views of the few inter-

preters mentioned above show, there is a wide range of opinions about
what the argument succeeds in proving (if anything). Although there is
general agreement that the argument does not succeed in proving the
immortality of the soul because of some logical fault in the reasoning,
it is controversial exactly where the argument goes wrong. Moreover,
the argument has provoked debate not only over its logical features,
but also over whether it was meant to be a self-contained or a partial
argument for the immortality of the soul and whether Plato himself
thought of it as a good argument or not.
In what follows, I shall argue that the argument is not logically
faulty, that Plato meant it not to be a complete self-contained argument
for the immortality of the soul, and that he himself was not totally
satisfied with it — not because of any logical problem, but because the
conception of the soul it conveys turns out to be at variance with
Plato's further reflections on the nature of the soul in the very same
dialogue.
Preliminary Remarks
s>
Let me begin with some remarks about the aim and the terminology
of the Cyclical Argument: Cebes hesitates to share Socrates' confidence
that there is hope of a better life after death and, at 70a2—6, expresses
his fear that the soul5
after it separates from the body would be no longer anywhere, but on that day on
which the man dies, soon released from the body, it is destroyed and perishes,
and coming out scattered like breath or smoke, it departs vanishing and is no
longer anywhere.
To dispel Cebes' worry, Socrates has to show that, after separation
from the body, the soul does not get dispersed and destroyed, that it is
"somewhere" as opposed to being "no longer anywhere". At 70c4f.,
Socrates explicitly says that the issue to investigate is "whether the
souls of the men who have died are in Hades or. not".6 The avowed
4
J. Barnes ("Critical Notice on D. Gallop, trans., Plato: Phaedo", Canadian Jour-
nalof Philosophy 8 (1978), pp. 397 -419), p. 417.
5
Translation of this and of all other quoted passages is mine.
6
Barnes has pointed out the difference in phrasing between this and the statement
at 71e2: "Then our souls do exist in Hades", which does not specify that they
so exist after our death. Accordingly, he argues that the portion of the argument
from 69e6 to 71e2 deals with the issue of whether souls are either capable of
existing or actually do exist in separation from bodies simpliciter, rather than
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Plato's Cyclical Argument for the Immortality of the Soul 227
aim of the following discussion is therefore to prove the "post mortem"

existence of individual souls (to use Barnes' expression).
Socrates sets the strategy for his argument as follows (70c4-d4):
Let's investigate this issue in this way, (inquiring) whether the souls of the people
who have died are in Hades or not. There is in fact a certain old story we remem-
ber, i. e. that they [= the souls of the dead men] are there [= in Hades] having
arrived from here, and they come here again and come to be from the dead; and
if this is so (ει τουθ' ούτως έχει), namely that the living come to be again from
the dead, what else (would follow) but that our souls would be there? For, I take
it, unless they were (there) they would not come to be again, and sufficient proof
of the fact that that is true is this: namely, if it would become really clear that
the living come to be from nowhere else but from the dead.
The τούτο in ει τοϋθ' ουτω$ έχει at c8, which is spelled out as:
(a) the living come to be again from the dead
refers back to the second half of the old story, i. e. that:
(b) they (= the souls of the dead men) come here again and come
to be from the dead.
This suggests that (a) and (b) are descriptions of the same phenome-
non, although the grammatical subject of "coming from the dead" is
different in each case: the subject in (a) is "the living", whereas in (b)
it is "the souls of the dead men". In either case, Plato is clearly referring
to the process of reincarnation. It is important, however, to understand
precisely why Plato chooses to consider (a) and (b) as equivalent de-
scriptions of the process of reincarnation, given that the ensuing argu-
ment exploits and centers on the possibility of describing that process
in terms of an opposite (the living) coming to be from its opposite (the
dead).
Taking "the living" and "the dead" as abbreviations for "those that
are living" and "those that are dead" respectively, the problem arises
of establishing what the subjects of such properties are. Prima facie* it
with the question of whether they exist after separating from the bodies in which
they were incarnated- Barnes does admit that although the argument up to 71e2,
on his interpretation, proves only the soul's "prenatal" existence, probably Plato
took it rather to prove the soul's "post-mortem" existence. But if so, Plato could
not have considered the two formulations as different, in the way that Barnes
does. Moreover, Plato uses the term "Hades" for the sake of the argument, so
as to support the traditional view of the transmigration of souls. But the Hades
of the tradition is precisely the place where only souls of dead people are. The
specification "after our death" is redundant (see also Gallop [2], p. 210).

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228 Anna Greco
seems that they cannot be souls. In the transmigration process, a soul

does not come to be living from being dead, or vice versa, for the soul
is that which brings life to a body, and the whole point of the dialogue
is precisely to show that the soul is immune from death.7 However, the
process described by (a) and (b) is the becoming or change undergone
by nothing else but souls when they leave some bodies to return and
animate other bodies. Thus 'living' and 'dead' must apply to souls,
albeit in a non-ordinary way.
In addition, what does it mean to say that the living come to be
from the dead? It is well known that Plato uses the verb γίγνεσθαι
indiscriminately to mean either "to come into existence" or "to become
(something or other)". Given the examples he adduces at 70e-71a, the
second sense is clearly implied: something comes to be F from being
G. However, when the properties involved in the becoming are 'living'
and 'dead', it might seem that the second sense collapses into the first.
For it is natural to understand "coming to be living" and "coming to
be dead" respectively as "coming into existence" and "ceasing to exist".
But when applied to the soul, 'living' and 'dead' are not, for Plato,
synonymous with 'existing' and 'non-existing'. Plato uses the terms
"living" and "dead" in relation to souls in a technical way, based on
his previous definition of death as the separation of the soul from the
body.8 When he describes a soul as either coming to be living or dying,
what he refers to is the change that the soul undergoes as it becomes
either united with a body or separated from a body.9
7
See also Gallop [2], pp. 214 f.
8
See 64c2-9 and 67d4-7.
9
But not even when the verb γίγνεσθαι is used in the absolute sense of "coming
into being" and takes the soul as subject can it have its usual meaning of "coming
into existence". At Meno 81b3-6, in stating the same traditional view of the
immortality of the soul, Plato says: "for they say that the soul of man is immortal
(άθάνατον), and at times it comes to an end (τελευταν) — what they call "to
die" - at times it comes to be again (πάλιν γίγνεσθαι), but it never perishes
(άπόλλυσθαι)". Just as "dying" is not synonymous with "perishing" or "ceasing
to exist", so neither does "coming to be alive" nor "coming into being", when
said of the soul, mean "coming into existence". Some, e. g. Gallop and Loriaux,
have thought that this way of speaking about souls dooms the argument as
question-begging: "[...] the soul's discarnate existence is already covertly as-
sumed. And since that is precisely what the argument purports to prove, the very
concept of incarnation can be seen to beg the essential question" (Gallop, [1]
p. 105); and "Platon s'oblige en realite admettre a priori ce qu'il pretend
prouver: le fait que 1'ame existe reellement en soi avant la naissance de l'homme"
(R. Loriaux, Le Phedon de Platon, Commentaire et traduction, Namur, 1969,
vol. I, p. 131). See further on this point pp. 246 f. below.

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Given that 'living' and 'dead' as properties of souls mean respec-

tively "united with a body" and "(having been) separated from a
body", then (b) should be understood as:
(b*) The souls of the dead [i. e. the souls that are (= have been)
separated from bodies] come here again [i. e. come to be united
with some bodies again], and come to be [= come to be living,
i. e. united with some bodies] from the dead [i. e. from being
souls separated from bodies].
This is also what (a) means, although in a shorter form:
(a*) The souls that are living [i. e. united with bodies] come to be
[= come to be living, i. e. united with some bodies] from the
dead [i. e. from being souls separated from bodies].
Socrates tries to convince Cebes that their souls will not vanish or cease
to exist after separating from their bodies by arguing that a soul that
comes to be incarnated cannot but be the soul of a dead person. The
idea is that a soul that comes to separate from a body has to stick
around, as it were, in order eventually to come to be united with an-
other body. Of course, this conjecture is plausible only if a number of
premises are also granted. In particular, it must be accepted that souls
do not just come into existence together with bodies, but that they come
to be united with bodies and that this becoming is cyclical. The Cyclical
Argument precisely centers around these crucial premises, and tries to
justify them in terms of a general conception of becoming.
The Cyclical Argument's Presumed Flaws
That the living come from the dead is what Plato sets out to prove
in order to show that the souls are in Hades after separating from
bodies. There is no agreement among commentators, however, on ex-
actly how Plato's argument goes, except that (a) they all tend to read
the passage as consisting of three distinct and more or less independent
pieces of reasoning in support of the same conclusion, i. e. that the
living come from the dead; and (b) they all detect some flaw or other
in each reasoning.
Plato explicitly states two principles from each of which he seems
to derive his conclusion. The first is usually called the 'Principle of
Opposites':
PO: Opposites come only from opposites.

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230 Anna Greco
As will be made clear later in the dialogue at 103a-c, PO applies to

opposite things, not to the opposite properties themselves. Hence a
more useful formulation for our purposes is:
PO*: For any x, and for any pair of opposite properties F and G, if
χ comes to be F, then it comes to be so only from being G and
vice versa.
If 'living' and 'dead', as attributed to souls, are opposite properties, it
follows by a straightforward application of PO* that if a soul comes
to be living then it comes to be so only from being dead, i. e. that the
living come from the dead. It is usually thought that Socrates derives
this conclusion directly from the Principle of Opposites at 71dlO-el.
If indeed he argues this way, the problem arises of whether he is justi-
fied in considering 'living' and 'dead' as opposite properties in the way
required by PO*. This last constitutes a logical truth only if the oppo-
site properties in question are contradictory and not merely contrary.
But 'living' and 'dead' do not seem contradictory, even in the technical
sense in which they are taken to be properties of souls. For being united
with a body and being no longer united with one are not the only two
conditions in which a soul can be. A soul could also exist in separation
from a body without having ever been united with one. Let me label this
condition, for lack of a better term, as "non-living". A soul then may
be neither living nor dead [= no longer living]: it could be non-living.
Whereas the Principle of Opposites expresses a logical condition to
be satisfied by anything that undergoes a change involving a pair of
opposite properties, the second principle Plato introduces, far from
being a logical truth, has rather the character of an empirical general-
ization — one that seems blatantly false. It is the 'Principle of Alterna-
tion':
PA: For any pair of opposite properties, there are two processes of
coming-to-be, from one opposite to the other and back from
the latter to the former.
There are several possible ways to interpret this principle. Gallop took
it to establish, for either member of a pair of Opposites, the existence
of a process of becoming resulting in that opposite:10
[...T]he claim that there must be processes in both directions is vital for any
effective use of the principle that opposites come from opposites. For the principle
that whatever comes to be F must previously have been G requires that there
actually be such a process as 'coming to be F'. If, for a given opposite F, there w
i° Gallop [1], p. 109.

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no such process as 'coming to be F, the argument will break down. If, for exam-
ple, there is no such process as 'coming to be unripe', it cannot be inferred from
a thing's coming to be unripe that it was previously ripe.
It is doubtful that the principle is to be interpreted this way. Take
Gallop's own example: if being ripe and being unripe are opposites,
then the principle literally says that there are two processes of coming-
to-be, from being unripe to being ripe, and back from being ripe to
being unripe. The specification of the opposite from which the change
originates is not to be inferred once the principle is applied, but is
already determined by the application of the principle itself.
Even ruling out this first interpretation, the statement of PA is ambiguous. It can
be taken to assert merely that processes of change in opposite directions, like increas-
ing and decreasing, actually do occur in nature. It can also mean that for any pair
of inverse processes of coming-to-be, from one opposite property to the other and
vice versa, there is always a cycle of change, from one opposite to the other and
back to the former. Neither of these interpretations make the principle empirically
plausible. We may cite innumerable examples of 'permanent changes' such that, for
given pairs of opposites F and G, once χ has become G from being F, not only does
it not come back to being F, but there is no such process of coming to be F from
being G at all. Pairs of opposites like ripe/unripe, literate/illiterate or younger/older
are all of this kind. In the course of the argument, we shall see, PA is applied in the
former (and weaker) of the two senses just specified. However, the adoption of the
Principle of Alternation, even in its weaker sense, will find ultimate justification in
the view, advanced in the last section of the Cyclical Argument, that all becoming is
cyclical. So, in the end, Plato's claim turns out to be that, for any pair of opposites,
there are two processes of becoming, from one opposite to the other, because each
process of becoming is part of a cycle of alternation back and forth from one oppo-
site to the other.
At any rate, in conformity with PA, if 'living' and 'dead5 are opposite
properties, there are two processes of coming to be between them, from
being living to being dead and also from being dead to being living. In
the same passage, Plato also suggests that nature would be lame if
there were no process of coming to life again to balance the existence
of the opposite process of dying. One might find the appeal to the
presumed universally symmetrical operations of nature questionable.
But the crucial objection to this reasoning is that, from a strictly logical
point of view, it is not at all obvious that coming to life again is the
opposite of dying. If it is, however, acceptance of PA would be suffi-
cient to establish that there is coming to life again. The appeal to nature
seems then to be either redundant or unjustified. In either case, this
reasoning, interpreted as the independent argument from PA, seems to
be no less questionable than the previous reasoning, interpreted as the

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232 Anna Greco
independent argument from PO. So neither the argument from the

Principle of Opposites nor the one from the Principle of Alternation,
each taken alone, seems to entitle Socrates to draw the conclusion -
stated twice, at 71dl4f. and 72a4-8 - that the living come from the
dead and that, therefore, the souls of the dead exist in Hades.
At 72al2-d5, Plato seems to offer another bit of independent rea-
soning. He has Socrates argue that if the process of coming to life again
(άναβιώσκεσθαι) were not to occur, everything at some point would be
dead. This argument is generally thought to provide a confirmation by
reductio ad absurdum of the assumption of the existence of the process
of coming back to life, and so to give further support to the argument
from the Principle of Alternation. Commentators have noticed some
problems with this last argument too. For one thing, it assumes that
the souls, whether dead or living, are finite in number; it also seems to
convey the idea that a universe in which everything would be dead is
inconceivable. The argument certainly reflects some of Plato's theoreti-
cal views about the universe and the existence of change in it; we might
find such views questionable, but the fact that Plato does not give an
adequate justification of them in the context of the argument in which
they are applied is not sufficient ground to discredit the argument itself.
Rather, the crucial problem seems to be, again, the unwarranted as-
sumption that coming to live again is the opposite process to dying.
A new approach
Although the three sections in which the Cyclical Argument naturally

divides (70d7-71e2, 71e4-72alO, 72all-72d5) do present three dis-
tinct phases through which the reasoning develops, I want to show that
they are connected with each other much more deeply than has been
traditionally acknowledged. We also shall see that (i) the argument
itself provides a justification for the seemingly unwarranted assump-
tions that 'living' and 'dead' are contradictory opposites and that the
process opposite to dying is coming to life again; and that (ii) the
appeal to nature's perfection is not at all irrelevant.
What Socrates feels entitled to conclude at the end of the whole
argumentation are three theses that are presented in logical order
(72d8-el):n
[a] there really is coming to life again, and [b] the living come from
the dead, and [c] the souls of the dead exist.
11
As Gallop also notices: see Gallop [1], p. 113.

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In the programmatic statement at 70c4-d4, Socrates had already

pointed out that the conclusion that the souls of the dead exist (in
Hades) would follow if it were to be proved that the living come from
the dead, where such a process of becoming would be a coming to life
again, in line with the ancient doctrine of the transmigration of souls
mentioned there. Both the programmatic statement and the one just
quoted give us a precious clue on how to read the passage they enclose
(70d7-72d3): they suggest that the thesis that the living come from the
dead cannot be argued for independently of whatever reasons Socrates
will give for the thesis that there is coming to life again.
In the next section, I will give a detailed analysis of the Cyclical Argument. Let
me, however, anticipate in outline how I see the argument go through its three
phases.
Phase I
1. Souls come to be (something) from being dead. [Assumption A]
2. Being living and being dead are opposites. [Assumption Bl]
3. If any soul comes to be (something) from being dead, it comes to be living,
[derived from 2]12
4. Souls come to be (only) living from being dead, [from 1 and 3]
This first phase does not advance the argument very much, even though its result is
in line with the views that will be developed in the later stages. The conclusion is
not what Plato needs (it is not thesis [b]) and does not warrant inferring [c]; also,
the reasoning depends on the unjustified assumption A.
, Phasell
1. Being living and being dead are (contradictory) opposites. [Assumption B2]
2. Souls come to be dead (= separated from bodies). [Assumption C]
3. Souls come to be living (= united with bodies), [from 2 and nature's symmetry]
4. For any pair of opposite properties, there are two processes of coming-to-be,
from one opposite to the other and back from the latter to the former. [PA]
5. Coming to be living = coming to be living again, [from 1 and 4]
6. Souls come to be living again, [from 3 and 5]
7. There is coming to be from the dead, [from 6]
The second phase of the argument provides a justification for the first phase's unjus-
tified assumption A. At the same time, it establishes thesis [a] (step 6 above).13 How-
ever, the reasoning rests on another unjustified assumption, namely that being living
12
(3) follows from (2) only given the consideration that the only change that a soul
qua dead can undergo is that of coming-to-be living; in particular, there can be
no becoming from being dead to being non-living. See below pp, 237 £
13
Given that throughout this section of the dialogue "living" and "coming to life"
are said of a soul in the technical sense of "being united with a body" or "coming
to be united with a body", to say that there is coming to life again [a] is the
same as to say that souls come to be living again (step 6).

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234 A n n a Greco
and being dead are contradictory opposites (B2).14 Once this assumption is granted,
one could straightforwardly and correctly infer [b] (step 7 above) and [c] (that the
souls of the dead exist).
Phase III
1. Either all becoming is linear or all becoming is cyclical. [Assumption D]
2. All things that undergo processes of becoming are finite in number. [Assump-
tion E]
3. All becoming is linear. [Assumption for reductio]
4. If all becoming were linear, all things would eventually stop becoming. [Gene-
ral principle about becoming]
5. Some things do not stop becoming (the way they would if becoming were
linear). [Empirical claim]
6. It is not the case that all becoming is linear, [from 3 to 5 \>y reductio]
7. All becoming is cyclical, [from 1 to 6]
8. Souls come to be living and come to be dead, [from 2 and 3 in phase II]
9. Being living and being dead are contradictory opposites. [from 7 and 8]15
The third phase of the argument provides a justification for the second phase's unjus-
tified assumption B2, by arguing that all becoming is cyclical. Plato's argument in-
volves views that are obviously questionable, but is not logically flawed.
Analysis of the Cyclical Argument
Preliminary sections (70d7—7lall and 71 al2—c8)
The argument builds on two preliminary sections in which Plato presents and
illustrates the Principle of Opposites and the Principle of Alternation, respectively.
In illustrating the Principle of Opposites, Plato mentions a number of pairs of oppo-
sites. What is striking about this list is that it is a mixed bag. We have the pairs
beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, and then pairs of comparative opposite proper-
ties: larger and smaller, weaker and stronger, faster and slower, better and worse,
14
I marked the assumption in line 1 of the argument's second phase as B2 to em-
phasize the difference between it and assumption Bl in the first phase. There the
argument does not require opposites to be contradictory, whereas this is a crucial
condition for the argument to go through in the second phase. See below,
pp.240f.
15
(9) follows from (7) and (8) on the ground that (a) any becoming is a change
from and to opposite properties (which may be just contrary, not necessarily
contradictory), and (b) a cyclical becoming is a process of alternation between
changes from and to either one of a pair of opposites. If being living and being
dead are opposite properties involved in a cyclical becoming, this fact is sufficient
to rule out that a soul can come to be living (united with a body) from being
anything else but dead (separated from a body), and thus being living and being
dead turn out to be de facto contradictory opposites. See below pp. 242-46.

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more just and more unjust. Whereas the pairs beautiful/ugly and just/unjust are
pairs of merely contrary — not contradictory - opposites,16 the pairs of opposite
comparative properties are such that, when they are considered in the context of
what comes-to-be from what and are applied properly, constitute pairs of contradic-
tory opposite properties.17 One might think that Plato is here overlooking the dis-
tinction between what we would call contrary and contradictory opposites. But I
believe that this is unlikely, for two reasons. First, this is a distinction that we find
Plato drawing in other dialogues written around the same time he wrote the
Phaedo.18 Second, it is the very nature of the issue under discussion that would have
forced Plato to acknowledge the distinction between contrary and contradictory op-
posites: he could not have put forward a conception of becoming as a process be-
tween opposites and failed to see that in some cases an opposite might not come to
be from its designated opposite. Most notably, the properties 'living' and 'dead' as
they apply to souls constitute one of those cases, and Plato builds an argument the
whole point of which, it seems to me, is precisely to show that 'living' and 'dead',
when applied to souls, have to be taken as contradictory, rather than contrary, oppo-
sites. Why else would Plato try to show that the process opposite to dying is coming
to life again and that this is the only way in which souls come to be living, i. e.
united with bodies?
If we assume that Plato was well aware of the distinction between contrary and
contradictory opposites, the whole passage from 70e2 to 7la? acquires a new signifi-
cance. Plato here first mentions the pairs beautiful/ugly and just/unjust as examples
of opposites, but does not use them to illustrate the Principle of Opposites. When
he comes to that task, he turns instead to pairs of comparatives. It could be that he
does this precisely because he is aware that the Principle of Opposites requires that
the opposites be contradictory. Also, the immediately following exchange in the ar-
gument (71a—e) shows that Plato is very careful in haying Cebes, but not Socrates,
admit that 'living' and 'dead' are opposites, in the way required by either the Prin-
ciple of Opposites or the Principle of Alternation.19 This is a claim that will find its
justification only in the later stages of the argument.
16
Despite the privative suffix "un-", "unjust" is not the contradictory opposite of
"just". Just as we can say that something or somebody is neither beautiful nor
ugly, so can we say that something or somebody is neither just nor unjust. The
contradictory opposite of "just" is "non-just" which would include in its signifi-
cation both "unjust" and "neither just nor unjust". What holds for "unjust" in
English holds also for άδικος in Greek.
17
"Socrates could hardly infer from a thing's coming to be weak that it must pre-
viously have been strong, for it might have been neither. But he can plausibly
argue that if a thing comes to be weaker (than it was before), it must previously
have been stronger (than it is now). This inference is valid, provided that both
comparatives are filled out in the appropriate way." (Gallop [1], p. 108)
18
Professor Gallop alerted me to this fact, referring to Symposiuni 201e-202b.
19
Notice the move at 71c6f. where Socrates, after Cebes has asserted that the
opposite to being living is being dead, says: "Don't these then come from each
other, //indeed they are opposites (εΐττίρ εναντία εστίν)?1' Also, see 71d6: "Don't
you say that being dead is the opposite of living?"

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236 Anna Greco
The principle of Alternation, stated at 71al2-b2, is followed by three illustrations

(71b2-7): increasing and decreasing, separating and combining, cooling and heat-
ing. Only with respect to the first pair of processes, Socrates mentions the opposites
between which the processes occur; notice that these opposites are comparatives:
larger and smaller. Just as before, when illustrating the Principle of Opposites, Plato
does not venture to apply even the Principle of Alternation to pairs of contrary
opposites.
The following lines, 71b8-ll, end with a first statement of the two principles
together. At cl-5, there is a brief exchange in which Socrates gets Cebes to admit
that just as sleeping is opposite to being awake, so is being dead opposite to living.
There follows the statement at c6-7 that "these [the living and the dead], if indeed
they are opposite, come from each other, and two are the becomings between them,
given that these are two". No conclusion has yet been drawn, although the passage
clearly suggests that, if 'living' and 'dead' are indeed opposites, both principles would
apply to them. Note that although Cebes admits that 'dead' is the opposite of'liv-
ing', Socrates does not yet infer that the living come from the dead.
The First Phase (71c9-e2)
In this first phase of the argument, Socrates goes back to the analogy
with being asleep and being awake, this time emphasizing the fact that
between these two opposite states there are two opposite processes of
becoming, namely going to sleep and waking up. He asks Cebes to
develop the analogy with respect to life and death, but he also makes
sure that Cebes admits again that 'dead5 is opposite to 'living'
(71c9-d7). Cebes both times shows no hesitation in answering, but as
soon as Socrates confronts him with the consequences of his admis-
sions, Cebes seems to lose some of his confidence (note the italicized
responses) (71d5-e3):
S: Now you tell me in the same way about life and death. Don't you say that
being dead is opposite to living? C: I do. S: And that they come from each other?
C: Yes. S: Then what is that which comes to be from the living? C: The dead.
S: And what from the dead? C: / must agree that it is the living. S: Therefore,
Cebes, isn't it from the dead that both living things and living men come to be?
C: It appears so. S: Therefore our souls are in Hades. C: So it seems.
This passage is where commentators have usually seen the thesis that
the living come from the dead derived from the Principle of Opposites.
Gooch has called attention to a subtle point the exchange quoted above
makes:20
20
P. W. Gooch, "Plato's Antapodosis Argument for the Soul's Immortality: Phaedo
70—72", Seventh Inter·American Congress of Philosophy — Proceedings, Quebec,
vol. II, 1967, (pp. 239-44), p. 243.

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[...] Plato does not in actual fact abort his argument by resting it on a mistaken
logical inference [...] he does not ask Cebes to infer from the present state of
"being alive" to the past state of "being dead". Rather, his questions are simply
these: (i) What comes from the living? and (ii) What comes from the dead?
(7Id). Given that something does come from these states, Cebes is logically bound
to reply (i) the dead, and (ii) the living. That which is no longer living must be
dead, and that which is dead no longer must be living. The distinction between
contradictory-opposites and contrary-opposites makes no difference here.
It is true that Socrates tendentiously asks what it is that comes from
the dead, as though it had been proved already that there is such a
process of becoming. Of course, there might not be any such process
at all; nothing may ever come to be from the dead. If the aim of the
Cyclical Argument is to prove that souls keep on existing after separat-
ing from bodies, it may seem that Plato is begging the question, starting
as he does with the assumption that there is coming to be from the
dead. Yet this is not necessarily so. Given that we are talking here of
'living' and 'dead' as properties of souls, the proper formulation of this
assumption would be:
Souls come to be (something) from being dead. [Assumption A]
Socrates' interlocutors have already granted that death is to be ana-
lyzed as a process of becoming that the soul undergoes, a process by
which a soul comes to be separated from a body. The fact that a soul
can become separated from a body implicitly entails that it is possible
for a soul to exist in separation from a body. Now the question is
whether a soul that has come to be separated from a body may undergo
another process of becoming.21 Merely assuming at this point that it
does is compatible with a situation in which the soul would thereafter
cease to exist. Thus Socrates does not beg the question by assuming A,
although he will need to give us some reason to believe that there is
indeed such a process of becoming. Gooch's insight is that, even admit-
ting that 'living' and 'dead' were only contrary opposites,22 Socrates
can assert that if any soul comes to be (something) from being dead, it
21
Throughout this section, Plato seems to be concerned only with any process of
becoming that can be described as a becoming G from being F, where F and G
refer to properties of existents, not to existence and non-existence themselves
considered as properties. Plato is not ruling out that, after separation from a
body, a soul may change from being dead to going out of existence. He is rather
exploring what possible changes - we might say in the Aristotelian sense of
"alterations" - a soul can undergo after being separated from a body.
22
This is why in the outline of the argument I emphasized the difference between
Assumption Bl in Phase I and Assumption B2 in Phase II.

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238 Anna Greco
comes to be living (step 3 in the outline). There are three alternative

states in which a soul can logically be with respect to a body:
(a) living = united with a body
(b) dead = no longer living = having been separated from a body
(c) non-living = being in separation from a body (but having never
been united with one before).
If the property 'non-living' is so understood, it follows that a coming
to be from the dead could not result in the non-living. This would be
so even if the 'non-living' were to be understood in a weaker sense as
merely that which exists in separation from a body before entering one,
i. e. without specifying whether the soul has previously been united
with a body or not.23 In such a case (c) collapses into (b)9 with the
result that a soul which is no longer living would be ipso facto a soul
that is non-living; thus a change described as "coming to be from being
dead to being non-living" would be.no change at all. Hence if coming
to be from the dead is a change at all, it could only result in the living.
The reason why at 71dlO—15, as Gooch says, "the distinction between
contradictory-opposites and contrary-opposites makes no difference"
is that alternative (c) 'non-living' is automatically ruled out once it is
assumed that souls come to be (something) from being dead.
Having thus concluded that if any soul changes at all from being dead, it comes
to be living, Socrates now suggests the inference that the living come from the dead
and that the souls of the dead are in Hades (71dl4—e2). But the inference is not
justified. The argument concludes with the statement that "souls come to be living
from being dead". Yet all that Socrates has shown is: "from being dead souls come
to be (only) living". Socrates' inference at 71e2 that the souls of the dead are in
Hades would be correct only if he had shown that the living come from the dead in
the sense that "(only) from being dead do souls come to be living", a fact of which
Plato is well aware.24 Moreover, notice that, although the argument in this phase
rests on the assumption that 'living' and 'dead' are opposites, yet it is not quite what
the Principle of Opposites involves and, indeed, the Principle is not being applied at
all at this stage. Therefore, Plato seems to be guilty of two logical mistakes: he has
Socrates give the impression of applying the Principle of Opposites when he is not,
and he also has Socrates unjustifiably jump to the conclusion that the souls of the
dead are in Hades.
As far as the first 'mistake' is concerned, it should be, said that the Principle of
Opposites appears three other times before the exchange at 71 d - at 71a9f., at 71b9
23
Eliminate the parenthetical clause in (c) above.
24
Plato has Socrates say in the programmatic statement at 70d2-4: "sufficient
proof of the fact that (our souls are in Hades) is true is this: namely, if it would
become really clear that the living come to be from nowhere else but from the
dead". '.' ,

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and at 71c6f. - but it is not consistently formulated. Whereas the first formulation,
at 70el f., was "Opposites come only from opposites", the other three formulations
are less precise: "All these things come to be this way, opposite things from oppo-
sites" (71a9f.), "These [= all opposite things] come to be from each other" (71b9),
and "Then these things, if they are opposite, come to be from each other" (71c6f.).
The later formulations can well be understood as expressing the general rule that
(only) opposites come from opposites. As a matter of fact, even this general rule —
no less than the first formulation of the Principle of Opposites - requires that oppo-
sites be understood as contradictory opposites. But the statement in step 3 - "If
any soul comes to be (something) from being dead, it comes to be living" - holds
not because it is derived from that general rule, but because of a peculiar fact: when
considering the status of the soul, the property of being living has two contrary
opposites such that there cannot be any becoming from one (being dead) to the
other (being non-living). Hence, as far as the process of coming-to-be from the dead
is concerned, this cannot result but in the living, because 'living' and 'dead' are the
only two relevant opposites.
As far as the second 'mistake5 is concerned, there is no way around it: the conclu-
sion that our souls are in Hades does not follow from the thesis that souls come to
be (only) living from being dead. One might indeed wonder what the relevance of
this first phase of the argument is, given that, after all, what Plato needs in order to
justify the conclusion at 71e2 that our souls are in Hades is rather the thesis that
souls come to be living (only) from being dead. Even so, this initial exchange is not
without its function: it draws our attention to the point that if there were such a
process as a coming to be from the dead this could not but result in the living and
would, thereby, be a process of coming to life again. What needs now to be shown
is that (i) there is such a process of coming to be from the dead, and that (ii) this
process coincides with the process of coming to be living (i. e. united with a body).
This is precisely the task that Plato undertakes in the next two phases of the Cyclical
Argument.
The Second Phase (71e4-72alO)
The very next exchange, at 71e4-72a3, contains an argument to the

effect that there is a process of becoming from the dead, via the claims
that there is a process opposite to dying, and that this is coming to be
living again:
S: Then isn't it obvious that at least one of these two becomings occurs? For it is
certainly obvious that there is dying, isn't it? C: Certainly. S: What shall we do
then? Shall we not posit the opposite becoming in contrast to it? Will nature be
lame in this case? Or is it necessary to assume that there is a becoming which is
opposite to dying? C: Absolutely. S: What is this (becoming)? C; Coming to be
living again, S: So, if there is coming to be living again, isn't this the becoming
from the dead to the living? C: Certainly.

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240 Anna Greco
If this passage were taken in isolation, it would display a questionable

piece of reasoning: even granting the principle of symmetry in nature,
what reason is there to believe that coming to be living again, rather
than simply coming to be living, is the process opposite to dying? The
appeal to symmetry in nature can do no more here than to establish
that just as there obviously is the process of dying (that is, the process
by which the soul separates from the body), so too it is reasonable to
assume that there is the reverse process, by which the soul comes to be
united with a body (that is, the soul comes to be living). However,
Cebes' answer at 7lei3 is not totally unwarranted: he had admitted
that 'living' and 'dying' are opposites and he is now applying the Prin-
ciple of Alternation: by the Principle of Alternation, coming to be living
is the process of coming to be from the opposite of 'living'; hence, if
souls come to be living, they come to be living from being dead, and
this amounts to coming to be living again. The argument provides a
justification for the result attained previously that there is coming to
be living from being dead,25 but it does so on the assumption that
'living' and 'dead' are (contradictory) opposites (Assumption B2) be-
cause this assumption is implicit in the Principle of Alternation.
At the end of this second phase of the argument, at 72a4—8, Socrates says:
Therefore in this way too (και ταύττ)) it is agreed that the living come to be from
the dead no less than the dead from the living; but if this is so, it seemed, I take
it, to be sufficient proof that it is necessary that the souls of the dead are some-
where, whence they come to be again.
The και ταύττ) naturally suggests a line of reasoning that differs from the one de-
ployed in the first phase of the argument. Commentators have usually seen this as
evidence that the passage at 71e4—72alO presents an argument based on the Prin-
ciple of Alternation, while the previous passage (71d5—e2) used the Principle of
Opposites. The Principle of Alternation is indeed applied in this second phase of the
argument, but it involves the as yet unjustified assumption that 'living' and 'dead'
are contradictory opposites (B2). Notice that the application of the Principle of
Alternation does not make the appeal to symmetry in nature redundant: it has been
established on the basis of nature's symmetry that there is a process opposite to
dying, and the Principle of Alternation has been implicitly applied by Cebes in order
25
The argument in the first phase assumes that "Souls come to be (something)
from being dead" (Assumption A) and concludes with "Souls come to be living
from being dead", where this, given how it is derived, can only mean: "souls
come to be (only) living from being dead" - from which it does not follow that
our souls are in Hades. The argument in the second phase justifies Assumption A
and also concludes with "Souls come to be living from being dead", where this
is now to be understood so as to mean "souls come to be living (only) from
being dead" - from which it does follows that our souls are in Hades.

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to identify this process with coming to be living again. From B2, PA and the prin-
ciple of nature's symmetry it validly follows that there is such a thing as coming to
life again and that the living come from the dead (in the sense that (only) from being
dead do souls come to be living).
The results of our analysis of the first two phases of the argument
(70c4-72a8) can be summed up as follows:
(i) The two phases are not separate reasonings aimed at deriving
twice the same conclusion. Even if each of the two phases concludes
with the statement that "the living come from the dead" (71dl4f. and
72a4 f.), in the first phase the statement has to be read as "(only) the
living come from the dead" and in the second phase as "the living come
(only) from the dead".
(ii) The two phases are not independent bits of reasoning. In partic-
ular, the second phase provides a justification for the first phase's As-
sumption A that souls come to be (something) from being dead.
(in) The reasoning in the second phase, granting nature's symmetry,
is acceptable only on the condition that 'living' and 'dead', as proper-
ties of souls, are contradictory opposites. Otherwise, there is no reason
to believe that the process opposite to dying is coming to be living
again.
In addition, it should be noticed that the Principle of Opposites is
not applied in the first phase of the Argument, nor is it applied in the
second phase. Moreover, if the Principle of Opposites were to be ap-
plied, it would enable Plato directly to draw the conclusion from it that
if souls come to be living they come to be so only from the dead, and
hence that the souls of the dead are in Hades. The facts that the Prin-
ciple of Opposites is not applied, and that the conclusion which would
be directly inferred from it is gained in a much more labored way, by
applying other principles and assumptions, suggest that part of the aim
of the whole Cyclical Argument is precisely to justify holding the Prin-
ciple of Opposites in light of an overall view of change and becoming.
Such a view is put forward in the third and last phase of the argument.
The Third Phase (72all -el)
Arguing for the thesis that 'living' and 'dead' are contradictory op-
posites means finding reasons to rule out the possibility that souls come
to be living from being "non-living",26 thereby establishing the theorel-
26
This is alternative (c) listed above, p. 238.

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242 Anna Greco
ical identity of incarnation and reincarnation. This is indeed what Soc-

rates does in the third and last phase of the argument.
At 72al2-b5, Plato expresses the general view that becoming and
change are only possible if they are cyclical:
[I]f the things that come to be were not always to alternate with others, like going
in a circle, but if, on the contrary, coming to be were a straight process only from
one opposite to its opposite and did not return again to the former nor make a
turn [...] do you realize that all things would end up having the same form and
being affected in the same way, and would cease coming to be?
This passage should be compared with 71al2-b4, the statement of the
Principle of Alternation. There the existence of processes of becoming
in both directions - from one opposite to the other, and from the latter
to the former — was presented as just another feature of opposites (εστί
τι και τοιόνδε εν αύτοΐς...), and, as already noticed, it looked like a
disputable empirical generalization. But here the phenomenon of be-
coming is analyzed as being essentially cyclical. If it is, then it is also
the case that, a fortiori, for any pair of opposite properties, there are
two processes of becoming from one to the other, and back. It is the
view that becoming is essentially cyclical that justifies the Principle of
Alternation in its generality. Notice that Plato is here implicitly assum-
ing that becoming is either linear or cyclical.27
Plato argues that, unless becoming were cyclical, all things would
eventually cease becoming. This is not the same as to say that, unless
becoming were cyclical, nothing would ever undergo any process of
becoming. Nothing indicates that, for Plato, a linear becoming is incon-
ceivable or absurd. Rather, he worries that, unless becoming were cycli-
cal, all things would eventually stop becoming. Plato tries to articulate
this worry by applying the general counterfactual hypothesis of linear
becoming to three particular cases: (a) everything that could fall asleep
would fall asleep but could not wake up again; (b) everything that
could combine would combine but would not separate; and (c) all
things that could die (i.e. all living things) would die but could not
come to be living again. Plato seems to have thought that souls, and
presumably all the things in the world that could undergo any given
process of becoming, are finite in number. In line with the general
formulation of the counterfactual reasoning ("... all things would end
27
One might conjecture that, by ignoring the possibility that some things might
become linearly and others cyclically, he is already bent on identifying one of
those two features as an essential feature of becoming in general.

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up having the same form and being affected in the same way, and would
cease coming to be"), the problem posited by situations (a)-(c) is that
once all things have become in whatever way they could linearly be-
come, there would never be any more becoming of that sort, that is,
presumably from either opposite to the other. So, for example, once all
things that could fall asleep (i. e. all things that are awake) were to fall
asleep, but would not wake up again, there would be no more becom-
ing of the sort either 'waking up' or 'falling asleep'. Similarly, if all
things that could die (i. e. those that are living) were to die but would
not come to live again, there would be no more becoming of the sort
either 'coming to live' or 'dying' (72c5-dl):
In the same way, my dear Cebes, if all those things that partake of life were to
die and, after they have died, the dead were to stay in that condition and did not
come to life again, isn't it necessary that all things would end up being dead and
nothing would live!
Plato's use of the phrase "in the same way ..." is misleading. One might
wonder whether he is really entitled to draw a parallel between falling
asleep and waking up or combining and separating on the one hand
and dying and coming to life on the other. In the case of all things
falling asleep or combining, the counterfactual is more biting, as it
were. Falling asleep and waking up, and also combining and separat-
ing, are processes of becoming from and to contradictory opposite
states. If a person can fall asleep, that is because s/he is awake. If we
deny that being awake is the result of a process of becoming which is
opposite to falling asleep, that is, if we deny that being awake is the
result of waking up from being asleep, not only do we exclude that,
once fallen asleep, one can wake up again; we are also denying that
s/he ever became awake in the first place. However, if we admit that all
souls that are living may become dead but deny that they can come to
be living again from being dead, we are not ipso facto denying that
they could have come to be living in the first place: they could have
come to be living from being non-living (i. e. having never incarnated
before). The implicit assumption at work in the second phase of the
Cyclical Argument is that 'living' and 'dead', when applied to souls,
are contradictory opposites. Now the third phase of the Argument is
meant to justify that assumption. However, if we take that "in the same
way ..." as indication that Plato is here arguing by analogy, then he is
begging the question. For he would implicitly assume that being living
and being dead are contradictory opposites (the way being awake and
being asleep presumably are). However, as though to redirect the reader
away from this interpretation of the argument, Plato immediately

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244 Anna Greco
writes (72dl-3): "For if the living things came to be from the other
things (εκ των άλλων), but the living things died, what could prevent
all things from being completely consumed in being dead?"
There has been much debate in the literature on how to interpret the phrase εκ
των άλλων. Certainly these "other things" cannot be the dead, given the counterfac-
tual context. Hackforth thought that the phrase meant "... if the living had some
other origin than the dead", and accordingly proposed that the text be emended by
substituting τίνων for των.28 Loriaux resisted this emendation and remarked: "Των
άλλων designe tout ce qui n'a pas encore ete utilise pour faire du vivant; c'est ce tout
(determine et done limite) qui, dans Phypothese, serait finalement epuise."29 Gallop
has suggested the alternative reading of "things other than the living".30 These things
would be "non-living sources"31, the exhaustion of which would determine that ev-
erything would end up being dead, if the dead did not come back to life. But Gallop
also warns us that "if 'the other things' are conceived as 'sources', from which new
living things are generated, there has been a shift from the sense in which opposite
things were originally said to 'come to be' from each other".32
Plato's text is vague enough to be read in either of the ways suggested. However,
the correct interpretation stands out once we see that the philosophical point of the
passage is to rule out that the living could come from anything else but from the
dead. Plato needs to rule out that a soul could come to be living, i. e. united with a
body, from existing in separation from a body, but having never been incarnated
before. It makes no difference then whether we think of των άλλων as "things other
than the dead" or as "things other than the living", for it refers to souls which are
neither dead (no longer living) nor living, but rather non-living. Gallop's worry
about conceiving these "other things" as "sources" is easily dispelled by the consider-
ation that, in any case, these other things are not things other than souls. The expres-
sion "coming from ..." has been used throughout the whole argument as a way to
describe a change undergone by a certain subject from having a given property to
its acquiring the opposite property. What is in question in the passage at issue is the
state in which souls are before and from which they come to be living.
At 72dl f., Plato is suggesting that we consider the possibility that
souls come to be living from being non-living (rather than from being
dead); but, if so, he is not arguing under the implicit assumption that
living and dead are contradictory opposites. He rather argues that,
even granting that souls come to be living from being non-living, if
the processes of becoming that all the souls underwent between these
28
R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo, Bobbs-Merrill, 1955, p. 62.
29
Loriaux, op. cit., p. 130.
30
Gallop [1], p. 112.
31
Ibidem.
32
Ibidem. ''

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(contrary) opposites were linear, it would still follow, just as in the

other cases, that eventually they would stop becoming altogether.33
In this third phase of the Cyclical Argument, it seems to me, Plato
is indeed trying to justify the assumption that living and dead, when
applied to souls, are contradictory opposites. But he attains this goal
not by means of a direct but fallacious argument by analogy with wak-
ing and sleeping. Rather, his aim is to justify the view that becoming is
essentially cyclical. In doing so, he employs reasoning that does not
depend on whether any of the illustrative pairs of opposites (including
'living' and 'dead') are contradictory opposites. Plato is asking us to
imagine a situation in which no becoming is cyclical, and all becoming
is linear, whether it be a linear becoming from being F to being G
(where F and G are contradictory opposites) or whether it be a linear
becoming from being F to being G to being H (e. g. from 'non-living'
to 'living' to 'dead'). Once coupled with the assumption, which is ad-
mittedly questionable, that the things that undergo processes of becom-
ing are finite in number, the third phase of the Cyclical Argument sim-
ply argues that any becoming, understood as a process between oppo-
sites, must be cyclical, on pain of stopping after one or two instances.
It does not present an argument for the existence of such a process as
the soul's coming to life again (except indirectly). It is not a confirm-
ation by reductio of the result argued for already at 71e4-72al0.34 At
72all-d5, Plato aims — by establishing the general view of becoming
as cyclical - at the more basic result that the soul's coming to be living
cannot be but a coming to be living again. If every soul's incarnation
is a reincarnation, then it is also established that being living and being
dead are contradictory opposites. This result does not necessitate that
souls be such that they undergo any change at all. But if souls do
change by uniting with and separating from bodies then this change
must be cyclical. We still need the argument invoking the symmetry in
nature to be convinced that souls do actually come to be united with
33
If my interpretation is correct, Plato's worry is not that if all becoming is linear
then we cannot even explain how, for example, somebody that falls asleep from
being awake could have come to be awake in the first place. Leaving the question
open as to whether that initial stage is itself the result of a process of becoming
or not, Plato is concerned with the possible occurrence of a very last stage, after
which there would be no more becoming at all of that sort.
34
The third phase does involve an argument by reduciio, but the assumption for
reductio is not: "souls do not come to be living again"; it is rather: "all becoming
is linear".

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246 Anna Greco
bodies. But if so, they come to be living again. Only now would Plato
be justified in claiming that "our souls exist in Hades".
Does this mean that when Plato inferred that our souls exist in
Hades already at 71e2 and again at 72a7f. he committed a fallacy? On
this score, my opinion is that the first inference is indeed fallacious,
but not momentously so. All that had been proved up to that point
was that "souls come to be (only) living from being dead", from which
it does not follow that our souls are in Hades. However, as I argued
earlier, the second phase of the argument provides a justification for
the first argument's assumption B that "souls come to be (something)
from being dead", and it does so via the Principle of Alternation.
In turn, this Principle involves assuming that 'living' and 'dead',are
contradictory opposites. Once this further assumption is granted, the
second argument not only shows that there is coming to be from being
dead, but also shows that only from being dead would souls come to
be living, from which it does follow, after all, that our souls are in
Hades. Finally, in the third phase of the Argument, we have an argu-
ment that justifies the assumption that living and dead are contradic-
tory opposites.
In his closing remarks, Socrates says (72d7-el): "[... A]nd, not being
deceived, we agree on those very things: there really is coming to life
again, and living people come to be from the dead, and the souls of the
dead exist." The qualification ουκ έξοατατώμενοι (not being deceived) is
significant. It suggests that some measure of deception was involved at
those previous times during the Argument (i. e. from 71e to 72a) when
any of the three theses was asserted.35 Socrates is not here displaying
second thoughts on the correctness of the arguments previously devel-
oped; he is rather indicating his awareness that those arguments could
not be accepted as they stood without a justification for the basic as-
sumption that 'living' and 'dead' are contradictory opposites.
The Cyclical Argument turns out then to be free from any of the
fallacies that have been attributed to it, including the charge of ques-
tion-begging. It is true that the whole argument is based on the im-
plicit assumption that souls can and do enjoy disembodied existence
before incarnation.36 But this does not amount to begging the question.
35 Cf. 72allf.
36
... in addition to the assumptions that all becoming is either linear or cyclical
(D) or that all things that become — or, at least, souls - are finite in number
(E). These are views that Plato here does not even attempt to justify. Of course,
even if they are implausible, they do not undermine the logic of the argument.

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First of all, what the argument purports to prove is the disembodied

existence of the soul after separation from the body. That souls exist
before incarnation is compatible with the possibility that they get de-
stroyed at the moment of leaving the bodies that they will come to
inhabit. Hence to speak of a soul as being incarnated does not, by
itself, prejudge the issue. Secondly, although it is true that Plato tries
to prove that souls exist after separating from bodies by showing that
this is implied by their incarnation, Plato could not be content with
the mere result that the soul is capable of disembodied existence. This
condition would be satisfied were souls to exist (somewhere) before
entering bodies, though having never been incarnated before. Far from
being what Plato tries to prove, this could not be even part of what he
does want to prove. He wants to rule out the possibility that souls
come to be living from being non-living, i. e. from the state of existing
separately but having never been incarnated before. Plato indeed as-
sumes that the soul is capable of disembodied existence. But in the
Cyclical Argument, he is concerned with showing only that if a. soul
exists before uniting with a body, and if it undergoes a process of
change in coming to be united with a body, then that soul must be the
soul of a dead person.
The Incompleteness and Inadequacy of the Cyclical Argument
The Cyclical Argument is not logically faulty. But this is not yet to
say that it is a satisfactory argument for the immortality of the soul.
First of all, as already admitted, it presupposes the disembodied exis-
tence of the soul before entering a body. Although this presupposition
does not make the argument question-begging, it nonetheless needs to
be justified. Secondly, the Cyclical Argument depends on a singular
conception of becoming, namely that becoming in general is essentially
cyclical. Thirdly, it presupposes that souls, no less than physical ob-
jects, are bound by the laws that such a conception dictates.
The Soul's Pre-Existence
We do not need to look very far for a justification of the presupposi-

tion that souls exist before incarnating. The Recollection Argument,
which immediately follows the Cyclical Argument, is explicitly pre-
sented and recognized throughout the dialogue as an adequate proof

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248 Anna Greco
of the soul's pre-existence. However, in the exchange at 77cf., the Rec-

ollection Argument is not presented as that which would complete the
Cyclical Argument, but rather as the proof of half of the argument for
the immortality of the soul Cebes, in fact, complains (77cl-5):
[...I]t seems that half, so to speak, of what it is necessary (to prove) has been
proved, i. e. that our soul existed before we came to be; but it is necessary to
prove in addition that it will exist after we have died, no less than before we came
to be, if the proof is going to be complete.
Socrates replies by suggesting that Cebes and Simmias "put together"
(συνθεΐναι) the Recollection Argument with the Cyclical Argument
(77c6-9):
'That is demonstrated even now, Simmias and Cebes', said Socrates, Mf you are
willing to put together this argument with the one we have agreed on before this,
(according to which) all that is living comes to be from what is dead'.
Archer-Hind and Taylor, among others, have taken seriously the suggestion that the
Cyclical Argument and the Recollection Argument are the two halves of a single
proof for the immortality of the soul. They have inferred that just as the Recollection
Argument is incomplete because it shows the mere pre-existence of the soul, so too
the Cyclical Argument is incomplete because it shows the mere post mortem existence
of the soul.37 I doubt, however, that this is the way in which the Cyclical Argument
could be said to be incomplete. The suggestion that the Cyclical Argument and the
Recollection Argument are the two halves of a single proof comes from the infelici-
tous way Cebes complains about the incompleteness of the Recollection Argument
at cl— 5. Yet a proof of the soul's pre-existence plus a proof of its post mortem
existence do not add up to a proof of the soul's immortality. A soul might exist for
some time before incarnating and for some time after separating from the body in
which it was incarnate, without always existing. .
Furlong remarked that although Socrates agrees with Cebes that the Recollection
Argument needs to be complemented by the Cyclical Argument, nowhere in the text
do we find the suggestion that the Cyclical Argument needs to be complemented in
the inverse way by the Recollection Argument.38 This is true, but it does not neces-
sarily indicate that the Cyclical Argument is complete as it is. Furlong accepted the
common interpretation of the Cyclical Argument, according to which Socrates there
argues - presumably begging the question or committing some other fallacy - for
the disembodied existence of the soul, that is, for its existence both before and after
incarnation. Consequently, Furlong thought that in suggesting the combination of
the two arguments39
37
See R. D. Archer-Hind, The Phaedo of Plato, (2nd ed., 1894) pp. xvi-xxiv, and
A. E. Taylor, Plato, the Man and his Work, (4thed.), pp. 185ff.
38
E. J. Furlong, "Two Arguments in Plato's Phaedo", Hermatema 55 (1940),
pp. 62-72, pp.67 f.
39
Furlong, op. cit.9 p. 67.

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Socrates does not really use the conclusion of [...] [the Recollection Argument] in
order to deduce the existence of the soul after death; although, for some reason,
he is either under, or wishes to give, the impression that he is using it. If the
former be the case, then he is merely mistaken and no problem arises. If the latter
be the true account, one may ask why he should wish to give such an impression.
Perahps [...] he is attempting to humor Cebes and Simmias [...].
The problem is that it does not seem clear how Socrates wants the two
arguments to be combined. According to the traditional interpretation,
on the one hand both pre-existence ana post mortem existence are taken
to be the results of the Cyclical Argument, and on the other hand the
Recollection Argument seems to have no bearing at all on the soul's
post mortem existence. But note that when Socrates suggests combining
the two arguments (77c6), his goal is to make it evident to Cebes and
Simmias that the two arguments taken together provide all the proof
they need for the post mortem existence of the soul.40 Furthermore, in
the next few lines Socrates virtually describes how the two arguments
should be combined, and his words indicate something rather different
from the mere juxtaposition of an argument for the soul's prenatal
existence and an argument for the soul's post mortem existence
(77c9-d4):
For [1] if the soul exists even beforehand, and [2] if, when it is coming to be and
on its way to live, it is necessary that it comes to be from nowhere else but death
and being dead, [3] must it not also exist after it has died, [4] since it has to come
to be again?
Far from being "guilty here, not only of obscurity, but of error"41,
Socrates expresses very clearly and precisely the logic of his argumen-
tation thus far. Statements [4], [2] and [3], in this order, are precisely
the three theses asserted at the end of the Cyclical Argument at
72d8-el: [4] expresses the condition that there is coming to life again,
[2] is the condition that the living come from the dead, and [3] the
ultimate conclusion that the souls of the dead exist (in Hades). Condi-
tion [1] is the result of the Recollection Argument, and constitutes the
missing premise which was implicitly assumed in the Cyclical Argument
(although not yet justified at that stage) that the soul exists before
incarnation.
40
"[... I]t is necessary to prove in addition that it will exist after we have died [...].
'That is demonstrated even now, Simmias and Cebes', said Socrates, 'if you are
willing to put together [...].'" (77c3-7) See also Gallop (1], p. 135.
41
Furlong, op. cit., p. 65.

Authenticated
250 Anna Greco
The Cyclicity of Becoming
The Recollection Argument complements the Cyclical Argument in

the sense that it provides the justificatory reasons for the assumption
that the soul exists before incarnating. In this sense, the Recollection
Argument has a bearing on the purported aim of the Cyclical Argu-
ment, which is to show that the soul exists after separation from the
body. But does this amount to an argument for the soul's immortality?
One might think that it does, at least to the extent that the soul is seen
as something bound to alternate incessantly between union with and
separation from some body. However, if the reason for this is that
alternation is the only way in which becoming is possible - the general
law of becoming expressed at 72al2-b5 - then all that Plato is entitled
to assert is that a soul, so long as it exists, cannot but alternate between
uniting with and separating from some body. The counterfactual rea-
soning at 72dl —3 is meant to rule out the possibility that a soul would
come to be united with a body if it had never been united with a body
before; so that every incarnation is a reincarnation. However, this is
compatible with the hypothesis that a soul might come into existence
together with a body at some time - this would not be coming to be
united with a body — and start the alternation process then. If so, what
would prevent the soul from simply stopping alternating and existing
at some later point?
Beyond Becoming
The Recollection Argument enables Plato to disarm such an objec-

tion, but at the cost of rendering the Cyclical Argument useless. The
Recollection Argument not only provides justification for the Cyclical
Argument's assumption of the soul's pre-existence; it also implicitly ex-
cludes that a soul could come into existence together with a body. The
particular nature of the human soul, able to reason, understand, and
learn, is such that it can apprehend a form of reality that does not exist
in the physical world accessible to the bodily senses. The postulation
of the soul's pre-existence is necessary in order to explain why the soul
has the particular intellectual functions it displays during the period in
which it is united with a body. However, the Recollection Argument
does not show that any soul qua principle of life has to exist prior to
that to which it will bring life, but it shows that that must be so only,
for human souls, in virtue of their particular nature. Moreover, it re-
quires the pre-existing soul to have acquired knowledge of the Forms

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during its disembodied existence; it does not require that the pre-exist-
ing soul be that of a dead person. As the Affinity Argument will later
make clear, the state in which the soul is able to contemplate the Forms
directly is also the state in which the philosopher hopes his soul to be
after death. If the philosopher's soul (80e2, 81a4-9)
is separated pure, drawing along with it nothing corporeal [...] then, does it not
go in this condition to the invisible, which is similar to it, the divine and immortal
and wise? and, once it is arrived there, isn't it going to be happy, free from error
and folly, from fears and wild desires, and from the other human evils? and, as
is said of the initiated, does it not truly spend the rest of time with gods?
This is clearly a state in which the soul would be if it were to escape
the "wheel of births" to which it is bound by its associations with
bodies and concerns with corporeal matters. From considerations rela-
tive to the nature of the human soul, both the Affinity Argument and
the Recollection Argument emphasize the soul's capacity to exist not
only in separation from bodies, but also without becoming, i. e. beyond
the trap of a continuous process of alternation between association
with and dissociation from some body.
Thus, ironically, Plato ends up taking away with one hand what he
had given with the other: whereas the Cyclical Argument had assumed
the soul's pre-existence and tried to show that the pre-existing soul had
to be that of a dead person, the Recollection Argument tries to show
that the soul must pre-exist incarnation, but only as a soul that has not
yet started on a cycle of reincarnations and can hardly be, therefore,
the soul of a dead person. This is why, in the end, despite what Plato
has Socrates say to the contrary, the Recollection Argument does not
succeed in completing the Cyclical Argument. It actually succeeds in
making the Cyclical Argument irrelevant towards showing the soul to
be immortal.
Conclusion
We can now see what the fundamental weaknesses of the Cyclical

Argument are. First of all, it centers around a non-essential feature of
the soul, its susceptibility to becoming,42 and analyzes this feature in
42
I take this to be a non-essential feature, because Plato's discussion of the human
soul in the rest of the Phaedo, especially the characterization of it in the Affinity
Argument, shows that what he takes to be essential to the soul is what makes it
akin to the Forms. Its associations with the corporeal with the consequent ten-
dency to be, like the corporeal, changeable and varied, are treated as unfortunate
occurrences, if not aberrations.

Authenticated
252 Anna Greco
terms of a conception of becoming that, presumably, is meant to apply

primarily to physical perceptible objects within the limits of their exis-
tence. We may grant Plato his peculiar conception of becoming as cycli-
cal. We may also grant him that the soul goes through the opposite
and alternating processes of separating from a body and of coming to
be united with a body again. Even so, a proof of the immortality of the
soul on this basis requires that it be shown how the soul's continuous
alternating between life and death is itself eternal. But this, in the end,
is at variance with Plato's views on the intellectual capabilities of hu-
man souls.
Furthermore, the Cyclical Argument extends the application of
Plato's conception of becoming to souls with respect to the properties
'living' and 'dead', where these are understood in the special sense of
"being united with a body" and "separated from a body". But no such
analysis would apply to other things that are subject to becoming,
whose coming to be living and dying amount to coming into existence
and ceasing to exist. This fact reveals an unresolved tension at the very
heart of the Cyclical Argument. Plato is torn between including souls
in the realm of becoming and thinking of souls as entities transcending
physical perceptible objects.
I believe that Plato was well aware of these inadequacies of the Cycli-
cal Argument. It is not by chance that the following sections of the
Phaedo — the Recollection Argument, the Affinity Argument, the dis-
cussion of the 'attunement theory' - will focus on the nature of the
soul. In the end, Cebes' objection, centered on the coat-weaver analogy,
brings to the fore an aspect of the relation between the soul and the
body it inhabits that the Cyclical Argument had totally ignored: the
soul is the cause of the body's life, i. e. of its existence as a living organ-
ism which, qua living, becomes and moves. The soul cannot be assimi-
lated to physical perceptible objects - even on the score that each is
subject to becoming - because, as Plato himself will claim in the argu-
ment for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedrus (245c5—246a2),
physical objects are simply moved whereas the soul is a self-moving
mover. It is, in fact, by concentrating on the soul's causal role as a
principle of life and by trying to explain the origin of such a causal
role through the relation between the soul and the Form of Life that
the very last argument in the Phaedo will try to show the soul's imper-
ishability. But with this, we are very far beyond the limited perspective
of the Cyclical Argument.

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Plato's Cyclical Argument for the Immortality

Plato's Phaedo contains four different arguments for the immortality

Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 78. Bd., S. 225-252

nothing of any eschatological interest".4 As the views of the few inter-

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aim of the following discussion is therefore to prove the "post mortem"

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seems that they cannot be souls. In the transmigration process, a soul

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Given that 'living' and 'dead' as properties of souls mean respec-

The Cyclical Argument's Presumed Flaws

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As will be made clear later in the dialogue at 103a-c, PO applies to

i° Gallop [1], p. 109.

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independent argument from PO. So neither the argument from the

Although the three sections in which the Cyclical Argument naturally

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In the programmatic statement at 70c4-d4, Socrates had already

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Analysis of the Cyclical Argument

Preliminary sections (70d7—7lall and 71 al2—c8)

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The principle of Alternation, stated at 71al2-b2, is followed by three illustrations

The First Phase (71c9-e2)

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comes to be living (step 3 in the outline). There are three alternative

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The Second Phase (71e4-72alO)

The very next exchange, at 71e4-72a3, contains an argument to the

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If this passage were taken in isolation, it would display a questionable

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The Third Phase (72all -el)

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ical identity of incarnation and reincarnation. This is indeed what Soc-

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(contrary) opposites were linear, it would still follow, just as in the

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First of all, what the argument purports to prove is the disembodied

The Incompleteness and Inadequacy of the Cyclical Argument

The Soul's Pre-Existence

We do not need to look very far for a justification of the presupposi-

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of the soul's pre-existence. However, in the exchange at 77cf., the Rec-

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The Cyclicity of Becoming

The Recollection Argument complements the Cyclical Argument in

The Recollection Argument enables Plato to disarm such an objec-

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We can now see what the fundamental weaknesses of the Cyclical

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terms of a conception of becoming that, presumably, is meant to apply

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Greco 1996 Plato's Cyclical Argument

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