On Song, Logos, and the Movement of the Soul: After Plato and Aristotle

Abstract

In the Phaedo – a dialogue investigating the immortality of the soul – Socrates compares himself to the swans of Apollo who sing “most beautifully” before they die. Working principally from the Phaedo (but also Timaeus, Parmenides, and Philebus), the aim of this article is to determine the relation between the song of the swan and the song of the philosopher. First, we examine the use of language in human song as a way to consider the other side of logos: logos not only as word but logos as ratio – i.e., as a relation between temporally-ordered terms. This ratio we then examine as the sense of before-and-afterness that Aristotle explores, in Physics IV, as the “number of movement” that is time; for, through the counting of this “number of movement” (accomplished by the soul), we begin to understand how swans (through song) and philosophers (through dialogue) share a temporal orientation toward what transcends the present moment. This temporal orientation, I argue, pertains to sempiternity, an ageless or undying [ἀθάνατος] movement of the soul. Thus, I conclude that philosophy as “the highest kind of music” (Phaedo) – like the song of the swans of Apollo – concerns itself with the undying state of the soul and, hence, with ethos.

The Role of the Rational Soul in Hearing in Plato’s the Timaeus

“…As is articulated in 3.1, since "the structure of the world soul consists in the arrangement of the harmoniously proportionate parts into which the Demiurge divided the final mixture of the elements", the human soul, the less-pure version of the world soul, should possess "harmoniously proportionate parts" as well. In the Timaeus, such harmonious proportion is mathematically presented through the figure of the tetractys: Figure 6: tetractys, from Jessica Wiskus [9] As is pointed out by Timaeus, "whenever of three numbers (or bulks or powers) the middle term between any two of them is such that what the first term is to it, it is to the last, and, conversely, what the last term is to the middle, it is to the first, then since the middle terms turns out to be both first and last, and the last and the first likewise both turn out to be middle terms, they will all of necessity turn out to have the same relationship to each other, and, given this, will all be unifie.". Jessica Wiskus, in her article called "On Song, Logos, and the Movement of the Soul: After Plato and Aristotle", interprets the aforementioned sequences as that "all the terms are interchangeable.…”

“…there is a potential for 1:2 to be as 2:4-for 1 to be interchangeable with 2 and 2 interchangeable with 4, i.e. for what a number is to become what it is not" [9]. Additionally, she further introduces the Greek notion δύναμις-it, in a technical way, is used to "describe the power or potential that each number has in relation to itself", and potential, essentially, is about "something yet to come or something having passed" and "involving a condition of non-presence"-it is exactly this potential or δύναμις that effectuate the tetractys [9].…”

“…In the Ancient Greek, rhythm "carries the sense of motion or time constitute through a proportion or symmetry of parts", and such motion or time "is perceived as a continuum between potentiality and actuality-between the already-absent past and the yet-to-come future". In summary, both speech and rhythm partake of potential or δύναμις and pertains to time-"to the irruption of every 'now' through the not-now" [9]. Since the rational soul is enabled by its inner structure (tetractys) to transcend what is given at present, it makes sense that it can intellectually recognize speech and rhythm in hearing.…”