... that the soul's relationship with the body is not an arrangement of the different components which make up a person, rather it is an attunement. In this, Simmias acknowledges Socrates' idea that the soul must be distinct from the body, but it is not an entity in itself: "[...] the body's state of being ready to live..." (86) Therefore the 'attunement' referred to by Simmias is actually an internal harmony between the body and the soul. Plato suggests that Simmias is rigidly supporting his Pythagorean beliefs by choosing to challenge Socrates' viewpoint, since Simmias' view that the body must come into existence before the soul can enliven it, and will disappear when the body dies, is based on mathematical logic. Simmias chooses the example of the lyre to illustrate his objection: the physical object (i.e. the instrument) must exist before the harmony (i.e. the resulting music) can come into existence. Although the ...

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