Alcibiades and Socrates on the soul

Plato Complete Works, Benjamin Jowett, Alcibiades I, 50/3045 - 52/3045

"Socrates: And does not a man use the whole body?

Alcibiades: Certainly.

Socrates: And that which uses is different from that which is used?

Alcibiades: True.

Socrates: Then a man is not the same as his own body?

Alcibiades: That is the inference.

Socrates: What is he, then?

Alcibiades: I cannot say.

Socrates: Nay, you can say that he is the user of the body.

Alcibiades: Yes.

Socrates: And the user of the body is the soul?

Alcibiades: Yes, the soul.

Socrates: And the soul rules?

Alcibiades: Yes.

Socrates: Let me make an assertion which will, I think, be universally admitted.

Alcibiades: What is it?

Socrates: That man is one of three things.

Alcibiades: What are they?

Socrates: Soul, body, or both together forming a whole.

Alcibiades: Certainly.

Socrates: But did we not say that the actual ruling principle of the body is man?

Alcibiades: Yes, we did.

Socrates: And does the body rule over itself?

Alcibiades: Certainly not.

Socrates: It is subject, as we were saying?

Alcibiades: Yes.

Socrates: Then that is not the principle which we are seeking?

Alcibiades: It would seem not.

Socrates: But may we say that the union of the two rules over the body, and consequently that this is man?

Alcibiades: Very likely.

Socrates: The most unlikely of all things; for if one of the members is subject, the two united cannot possibly rule.

[WRM Lamb translation (130c): "The unlikeliest thing in the world: for if one of the two does not share in the rule, it is quite inconceivable that the combination of the two can be ruling."]

Alcibiades: True.

Socrates: But since neither the body, nor the union of the two, is man, either man has no real existence, or the soul is man?

Alcibiades: Just so.

Socrates: Is anything more required to prove that the soul is man?

Alcibiades: Certainly not; the proof is, I think, quite sufficient.

Socrates: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall be satisfied;—more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too much protracted.

Alcibiades: What was that?

Socrates: What I meant, when I said absolute existence must first be considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly ourselves than the soul?

Alcibiades: There is nothing.

Socrates: Then we may truly conceive that you and I are conversing with one another, soul to soul?

Alcibiades: Very true."