One Instance

(One more post for today. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I'll be standing on the summit of Mt. Washington and unable to post.)

Sam Rickless has posted a handout on the arguments of the Phaedo, which illustrates well the logical structure one would want to attribute to the Affinity Argument--three distinct considerations, each leading to the same crucial conclusion. And yet the text, it seems, does not allow us to construe it in this way:

Affinity Argument (78b-80d)

1. Noncomposite things are indissoluble.
2. Things that always remain the same in the same state are most likely noncomposite.
3. Forms always remain the same in the same state.
4. Sensible things never remain the same in the same state.
5. Forms are invisible.
6. Sensible things are visible.
7. Invisible things always remain the same in the same state, and visible things never remain the same in the same state.(3,4,5,6)
8. The soul is invisible.
9. The soul is indissoluble.(1,2,7,8)
10. When the soul investigates things that remain the same in the same state, it too remains the same in the same state.
11. The soul investigates the Forms.
12. The soul is indissoluble.(1,2,3,10,11)
13. The nature of the divine is to rule and lead.
14. The nature of the soul is to rule and lead (the body)
15. If X is F and Y is F, then X resembles Y.
16. The soul resembles the divine. (13,14,15)
17. The divine is indissoluble.
18. If X resembles Y and Y is G, then X is G.
19. The soul is indissoluble.(16,17,18)