Phaedo 88a: how to think of gender issue?

[hlawson38]

The question of gender disagreement with ψυχὴν has come up here before, but I had trouble applying the advice to this place.

οὕτω γὰρ αὐτὸ φύσει ἰσχυρὸν εἶναι, ὥστε πολλάκις γιγνομένην ψυχὴν ἀντέχειν

Trial translation: for it is so strong by nature that the soul withstands being born many times
(i.e. the soul can be many times reborn in new bodies.)

I want the antecedent of αὐτὸ to be ψυχὴν, but I can't account for the gender disagreement.

Does Plato have a philosophical point? This question is inspired by LSJ:

4. [select] in Philosophy, by or in itself, of an abstract concept or idea, “δίκαιον αὐτό” Pl.Phd.65d; “αὐτὸ τὸ ἕν” Id.Prm.143a, al., cf. Arist. Metaph.997b8: neut., αὐτό is freq. in this sense, attached to Nouns of all genders, “οὐκ αὐτὸ δικαιοσύνην ἐπαινοῦντες ἀλλὰ τὰς ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς εὐδοκιμήσεις” Pl.R.363a; less freq. with Art., “τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶν αὐτὸ ἡ ἀρετή” Id.Prt.360e; more fully, εἰ αὐτὸ τοῦτο πατέρα ἠρώτων, ἆρα ὁ πατήρ ἐστι πατήρ τινος, ἢ οὔ; Id.Smp.199d; ἀδελφός, αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅπερ ἔστιν the ideal, abstract brother, ibid.e: later, in compos., αὐτοαγαθόν, αὐτοάνθρωπος, etc. (q. v.), cf. Arist.Metaph.1040b33; less freq. agreeing with the Subst., “ἵνα αὐτὴ δικαιοσύνη πρὸς ἀδικίαν αὐτὴν κριθείη” Pl.R. 612c, etc.; doubled, “ἐκ τῆς εἰκόνος μανθάνειν αὐτήν τε αὐτήν, εἰ καλῶς εἴκασται” its very self, Id.Cra.439a.

I can imagine that by the neuter αὐτὸ Plato might suggest an essential nature that makes the soul what it is. However, I don't know enough to advance this idea confidently.

[mwh]

You’ve put your finger on the difficulty, Hugh: why does he use the neuter, if he’s talking about the soul? It must surely be the soul that he’s referring to, and even if it’s frequently coming into being (πολλάκις γιγνομένην) one might have expected him to use the feminine (αυτήν). But evidently he wants to essentialize the soul (or as you well put it, the thing that makes the soul what it is), and so he expresses himself in such as way as to differentiate the thing itself (αυτό) from the soul that is often dying and being reborn. Just what that thing is, the thing in and of itself, as it were, he doesn’t say. (And how could he?) The argument is a bit loose around the edges here, but the word order seems significant.

I’d take αυτό as intensive, “it itself” rather than simply “it.” And I see there’s textual variation in the tradition between ψυχήν and τὴν ψυχήν. I’d have thought τὴν ψυχήν was better, or at any rate easier, but I don’t think it makes much difference to the point at issue.

[hlawson38]

Many thanks mwh for the helpful analysis.

In other threads on the Phaedo, it was noted that this disagreement is fairly frequent in Plato. However, IIRC this is the first one that bothered me. I'll probably see it more often now.

[jeidsath]

I feel that the use of αὐτό here stands out enough that it puts emphasis on the identity or selfness of the thing, providing a slight differentiation from the generic soul of the second clause.

οὕτω γὰρ αὐτὸ φύσει ἰσχυρὸν εἶναι, ὥστε πολλάκις γιγνομένην ψυχὴν ἀντέχειν

"For its very self is so durable of constitution, that a soul withstands being born many times."

The agrees with Michael's intensifier idea, and mostly works like, imo, bare αὐτός standing in for αὐτὸς ἔγωγε. But as I say above, I think it brings in the idea of self and identity, and goes further than merely adding emphasis.

--

In a separate usage from this, bare αὐτό often comes out of left field in Plato. LSJ: neut., αὐτὸ σημανεῖ the result will show, E. Ph. 623; αὐτὸ δηλώσει D. 19.157; αὐτὰ δηλοῖ Pl. Prt. 329b; αὐτὸ διδάξει ib. 324a; esp. αὐτὸ δείξει Cratin. 177, Pl. Hp.Ma. 288b, cf. Tht. 200e.

[mwh]

Yes clearly it’s doing more than just adding emphasis. It marks the thing “itself” as somehow different from the soul (which may be immortal but is not immutable), serving what I called an “essentializing” function. We could perhaps think of it as the idea of the soul. Cf. Symp.199d ὥσπερ  ἂν εἰ αὐτὸ τοῦτο πατέρα ἠρώτων (“as if I were asking about ‘father’ itself”).

I'd say this distinctively Platonic usage will certainly be related to the colloquial proverb αυτὸ δείξει ("itself will show") familiar from Attic drama, of which αυτὸ σημανεῖ is a Euripidean adaptation (esp. Bac.976).