| Title | : | Phaedo |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0192839535 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780192839534 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 144 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 381 |
| Awards | : | جائزة الدولة التشجيعية في الفلسفة لعام (1975) |
Phaedo Reviews
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Celebrity Death Match Special: Plato's Phaedo versus Philip José Farmer's To Your Scattered Bodies Go
[Riverworld. Night. Numerous people are gathered around a campfire, including RICHARD BURTON, ALICE PLEASANCE LIDDELL, PLATO, BENJAMIN JOWETT, DANTE, DAVID HUME and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. BURTON is addressing the others.]
BURTON: ... And for tonight's entertainment, as a unique favor, Plato has consented to perform for us Phaedo, his justly celebrated account of the death of Socrates. Professor Jowett, with some little assistance from Alice and myself, has undertaken the task of helping the great philosopher render his immortal words into English. Over to you, Plato!
PLATO: Thank you, my friends. I will begin at once. Echecrates: Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on the day when he drank the poison? Phaedo: Yes, Echecrates, I was...
[His audience listen spellbound as PLATO tells the story. Finally he concludes]
PLATO: ... he said - they were his last words - he said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.
[A moment of silence. Many people are weeping unashamedly. Then rapturous applause.]
PLATO: Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are all too kind.
A MAN IN THE CROWD: Hey, wait a minute.
BURTON: Who are you?
THE MAN: [his hood is over his face, muffling his voice] We'll talk about that later. What I want to know is, can we rely on this tale?
BURTON: My dear sir, are you presuming to doubt the word of Plato?
THE MAN: I am. He says he wasn't even there to witness the death of his great teacher and friend "because he was sick". Is that correct?
PLATO: I, uh, yes...
THE MAN: And what was wrong with you?
PLATO: Never been certain... really wasn't feeling at all well that day... perhaps some bad shellfish...
THE MAN: A likely story.
BURTON: This is an outrage. How dare you address the greatest philosopher of antiquity - indeed, of all time - in these terms? Once again, who are you?
THE MAN: [throwing back his hood] If you want to know, I'm Socrates. And the piece you have just heard is nothing but a concoction of embellishments, half-truths and outright lies. Young Plato, you should be ashamed of yourself.
[General consternation]
BURTON: Plato, is this true? Do you recognize him?
PLATO: I, uh, I'm not sure... been a long time...
THE MAN: Honestly, Plato. Well, let me explain the absurd nature of my former student's claims. First of all, this disquisition on the nature of identity and comparison. Does that sound like something I would say? In your dialogue Euthydemus, you correctly report me as making fun of the sophists who enjoy this kind of argument.
NIETZSCHE: Eet is true. I haf always vundered...
THE MAN: Thank you Fred. Nice to see I have some supporters here. Second, your long demonstration of the immortality of the soul. I still can't believe you had the nerve to do this. I always say I know nothing and doubt everything. Suddenly, I'm telling people I have proof - proof, I ask you! of these things which obviously no one can ever be certain about.
HUME: Well said, sir!
THE MAN: Thank you David. Third, that description of the underworld, complete with all major geographical features and a ridiculously detailed account of which people will end up where. Words fail me. Is it likely that I would be spouting this nonsense?
DANTE: Prego, signore. I like-a thees part very much, I make it da basis of great--
THE MAN: Sure, sure, sure. Dante, your epic is fantastic. Best thing since Homer. But the point is, it's poetry. I'm a philosopher. If anyone here doesn't understand the difference, they should leave right now.
DANTE: Ah, scusi. Scusi.
THE MAN: It's okay Dante. This is between me and Plato, right? So finally, my enigmatic last words. Why do you suppose I asked Crito to sacrifice a cock to Asclepius?
NIETZCHE: On zees too, I haf much vundered. Perhaps, you are zanking zee god for curing you of zee sickness of life--
THE MAN: It's much simpler. I just thanked the jailer for getting the dose right and not cocking it up. But as usual, Plato couldn't resist the urge to improve my words.
PLATO: I--
THE MAN: Yes?
PLATO: You are Socrates. I recognize you now. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I-- I meant well, you understand.
SOCRATES: I know you did, Plato. I shouldn't have given you such a hard time. Come here.
[They embrace]
SOCRATES: But don't do it again, okay?
PLATO: I won't. I promise. And I am truly sorry.
SOCRATES: Apology accepted. [He digs PLATO in the ribs] "Apology", geddit?
[They both laugh uproariously]
SOCRATES: Now let's find a tavern. We've got two thousand years of drinking to catch up on.
Match point: Philip José Farmer -
Tiene ideas interesantes aunque no me convence mucho lo propuesto. Al menos, no del todo.
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I have to try and read to completion one book by Plato. That will give real meaning to my reading life.
Well, I completed this book today and now will try another one, perhaps Crito.
There are some great arguments in this book and I believe a couple of famous phrases too, but I don't want to spoil things for others. -
Socrates died with quiet dignity. He was sentenced to drink a fatal dose of hemlock before nightfall. But first, he spent the day with friends and family discussing philosophy. PHAEDO is Plato’s account of that day.
In PHAEDO, Plato recounts Socrates’ arguments for the immortality of the soul. These arguments are not impressive to modern readers. We easily see flaws in Socrates’ logic. This begs the question, did Socrates genuinely believe his arguments for the existence of the soul? Or was there another motive for sharing these arguments with his family and friends?
His first argument is drawn from the ancient belief among Greeks that souls reside in Hades after death. This is a confusing argument that seems to reduce to an assertion that death does not annihilate the soul. This must be so, reasons Socrates, because souls cannot be created from nothing and, therefore, must be cycled over again or eventually nature’s supply of souls would be exhausted.
The second is Socrates’ argument from reminiscence. Since knowledge preexists us (as in the case of arithmetic or abstractions such as beauty), our souls must have lived before. How else could that knowledge already reside in our understanding?
His third argument begins as a refutation. Socrates refutes the assertion that upon death, the soul is dissipated by the wind. He argues that to dissipate, a soul would have to be divisible into smaller constituent parts. But souls are indivisible.
Socrates also demonstrates that the analogy to a lyre is false. The soul is not like harmony produced by a lyre that cannot be attained ever again after the lyre is destroyed.
Socrates then responds to the objection that souls may wear out over time. Wherever the soul is found, argues Socrates, there is life. Contraries cannot co-exist in the same thing. Therefore, the soul cannot admit of death. And that which does not admit of death is immortal. Accordingly, a soul is immortal.
Having demonstrated that the soul is immortal, Socrates also wants to demonstrate that the immortality of the soul implies that there is a duty upon a man to Live virtuously so that his soul will reside in a good place after his death. Socrates attempts to demonstrate this by imagining the various regions of the underworld to which good and bad souls go after death. The souls of the virtuous go to pleasant regions.
Socrates bathes, dismisses the women and children and, though it is early, he drinks the poison. He declines to delay further because he is ready and it would be undignified to quibble or wait any longer. Socrates remains present and engaged in life, including until the very moment before death, when he reminds a friend to repay a small household debt for him.
And thus, Socrates dies in a fashion plainly intended to be exemplary for philosophers.
It is a seminal moment in the western canon comparable even to the passing of Jesus. Everyone should read PHAEDO. -
"Such was the end of our comrade...a man who, we must say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright."
[March, 2013]
The grand finale of the wise man of Athens. This was Plato's account of Socrates last hours before his death. One has to say that while the
Apology is the most "pop-friendly" of the Socratic dialogues, Phaedo is the greatest, personal, and most human of them all.
We are taught two things in this dialogue that have both set the tone of western philosophy (I think) to this very day. We learn what the ultimate goal of philosophy is and in learning that we are introduced to Plato's Theory of the Forms. I believe, as others said, that all philosophers in the western school have basically responded to one or the other. I won't get into an in-depth explanation of the philosophy for like Socrates I know my limits and I would never be able to do it quite the bit of justice it deserves.
Now what is the goal of philosophy according to Socrates [and /or Plato]...preparing oneself for death. This had been strongly implied by Socrates during his trial in Athens but here it is the prime subject."...the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death."
This explains his calmness and pleasantness at his imminent demise; his almost annoying bewilderment at his friends and family's grief. This also sets up the dialogue of why he has nothing to fear as he will be moving to a much better state of being and we see him spending the remainder of the dialogue trying to convince every one that he will be fine as he lived his life the right way (practicing philosophy) so he will go to the underworld and live with "the God". During the conversation he explains the immortality of the soul, the world of the Forms and why said Forms are eternal. I'm not gonna try to explain it all but one is always marveled at the Socratic questioning method and it is on good display here.
I did have one thought that occurred to me, though I am not really troubled by it. In
Apology, Socrates said that he started undertaking philosophy when the Oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man in all of Athens. He disputed that and devoted his life to finding someone smarter than him. I simply wonder when it donned on him that philosophy was "practice for dying and death." I wish that had been explained.
Another thing of significance is Socrates (or Plato) prefiguring
Immanuel Kant in the theory of the "ding an sich" or thing-in-itself. As he says, "When then, does the soul grasp the truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived." He is more direct (and Kantian) when he says, "if we are ever to have pure knowledge we must escape from the soul and observe things in themselves with the soul by itself." Wow you can't get any pre-Kantian than that. So you see that this is my favorite Socratic dialogue because of its prophesying of aspects of Kant and existential philosophy.
I will definitely be reading this over again for years to come until "the God" says otherwise.
This was read as a part of
The Trial and Death of Socrates. -
Phaedo is widely, and rightly, considered to be one of Plato’s masterpieces. Here we witness the noble death of Socrates, perhaps the most iconic moment in the history of philosophy. As any proper philosopher should, Socrates dies in discourse, reasoning up until the very end. The subject of his arguments is, appropriately, what happens after death. By now we no longer find the skeptical Socrates of the early dialogues; here he is propounding the Platonic theory of forms. Plato's hatred of the real and love of the ideal leads him to conclude that the soul escapes the corrupting body into the pure understanding of ideas. Immortality is the natural conclusion. And with that comforting thought, Socrates drinks the poison and passes, if not into actual immortality, into the closest literary approximation.
Several things are likely to strike the modern reader. As in many Platonic dialogues, the arguments employed by Socrates can seem absurdly flimsy and faulty. Thus it is frustrating when Socrates’ interlocutors inevitably agree with his conclusions; surely real people would be able to see through these bad arguments. However, we have had a long time to develop our logical faculties, in large part thanks to the tradition initiated by Plato; so the occasional sycophantic tone we detect may have sounded quite differently not so long ago. Another striking aspect of Plato’s middle dialogues—and this one in particular—is the strong resemblance their theories have with Christian doctrine. This is no coincidence, of course, since Platonism was a strong influence on the early religion. Consequently, to a later-day reader in a Christian world this dialogue must have seemed eerily prescient and pious for a pagan writer.
As masterful as is this dialogue, in the context of Plato’s preceding dialogues it is quite discordant with Plato’s characterization of Socrates. The philosopher is transformed from a skeptic into a mystic, and even ends the dialogue with a description of the world beyond. And it must be said that convincing oneself that there is life after death is not, perhaps, the most philosophical way of facing death. But who knows what Socrates actually did and said that day? Plato himself admits that he was not present. -
Phaedo is the final part of Plato's (427-347 BCE) trilogy about the trial and death of his teacher, Socrates (469-399 BCE), and is preceded by the Apology and Crito . The Apology is a riveting account of Socrates' defense against the charges, his reaction to the verdict, and then his reaction to the sentence. Crito is a moving account of his reaction to an opportunity to escape his sentence. (I've written reviews for these in GR, if you're curious.) In this dialogue Plato has a young friend of Socrates, Phaedo, recount to acquaintances what happened in the final hours of Socrates' life, surrounded by friends and family and philosophizing up until the final draught of poison. Potentially, Phaedo could have been at least as moving as Crito .
However, in my view this potential was wasted in a most regrettable manner. Once again, as in Crito , Plato was not present at the event described. Though the conversation in Crito had to be, either partially or wholly, Plato's invention, it stayed true to the reports made about Socrates' manner and thought by Plato himself and other authors, such as Xenophon. But in this dialogue Socrates is largely Plato's sock puppet in a rather transparent and, to my mind, unacceptable manner. This ventriloquism even strikes me as disrespectful.
By all other reports, including Plato's, Socrates refused metaphysical and physical speculation, preferring instead to occupy himself and his collaborators (as he claimed to see them) with ethics and politics. But in this dialogue Plato has Socrates waxing eloquent about Plato's metaphysical speculations concerning ideal forms. Moreover, in the Apology , written relatively soon after Socrates' death, when Socrates speaks about death he considers only two options: (1) complete annihilation and (2) the standard ancient Greek view of all the dead gathered together in Hades, a bleak and somber place where family and old friends can be together eternally, if not joyfully. But in this dialogue Plato has Socrates "proving" the immortality of the soul and talking about souls of the dead returning in the newly born. Also damaging to the credibility of Phaedo is the fact that the chain of "certainly", "true", "of course", blah blah, responses of Socrates' listeners to Plato's words is more than just faintly ridiculous ( Crito is not entirely free of this). What a shame.
So, is there something positive to say about this dialogue? Well, if you are interested in Plato's body-and-pleasure-rejecting idealism, his views on ideal forms, the immortality of the soul, as well as why death is a good thing for a philosopher - most of which became sources of Christian theology - then all these find what is said to be their clearest expression in Phaedo .
Plato: But you don't think any of those things are positive.
Me: True
Plato: Even an unfortunate like yourself can recognize something positive to be said about my work.
Me: Certainly.
Plato (waits with brows raised and arms crossed)
Me: ---
Plato: Well?
Me: OK, but it wasn't the tedious sophistry concerning the existence of degrees of the soul.
Plato: Surely.
Me: And it wasn't the total rubbish about all knowledge being the recollection of an earlier, noncorporeal contact with ideals.
Plato: Quite so.
Me: My ears have always had a kind of wistful predisposition to perk up at your idea that the souls of the dead are recycled in the newly born. But I know you need that to get your crazy theory of knowledge to work.
Plato: Very true.
Me (eying Plato warily): I suppose I must put my cards on the table.
Plato: That is quite true.
Me: You should have cut everything between Crito passing along the message from the prison attendant and the stroking of Phaedo's hair. You could have saved that rubbish and put it in someone else's mouth in another dialogue. Then the Christians could still have gotten what they wanted and the spotlight in this dialogue could have been focused on Socrates' calm nobility during his last day on Earth, which is where it should have been.
Plato: What you say has a wonderful truth in it, Steve.
Me: Thanks for the props, man. And give me a buzz if you need some help with the next one.
(Re-read in Benjamin Jowett's translation.)
Forgotten surprise to stow away for later: Socrates is said in this dialogue to have written poetry in prison! And, once again, this was done at the behest of a vision in a dream. -
Το έ��γο του Πλάτωνα είναι μια πραγματεία "Περί ψυχής". Το θεωρώ ανώτερο του αντίστοιχου του Αριστοτέλη, αν και δηλώνω προτίμηση στον δεύτερο. Δεν παύει βέβαια να πραγματεύεται ένα θέμα μακράν ξεπερασμένο, για μένα, για το τι συμβαίνει στην ψυχή μετά το θάνατο ή πριν την γέννηση. Παρ' όλα αυτά, όπως όλοι οι πλατωνικοί διάλογοι, πολύ ευχάριστος.
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Το διαβάζω απο εκδόσεις βιβλιοπωλίον της Έστιας σε μεταφραση Ιωάννη Πετράκη.
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Lovely read.
Philosophical Drama, story of Socrates before his death.
So descriptively he had explained the virtue of Death with several enumerations.
I guess, each line one can takes as a quote of this book.
So amazing book and Highly recommended to all readers.
Some of Finest Quotes are
"I am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death." (Socrates)
"For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived by it." (Socrates)
"when men are interrogated in the right manner, they always give the right answer of their own accord, and they could not do this if they did not possess the knowledge and the right explanation inside them." (Cebes)
"These equal things and the Equal itself are therefore not the same?" (Socrates)
"Then before we began to see or hear or otherwise perceive, we must have possessed knowledge of the Equal itself if we were about to refer our sense perceptions of equal objects to it, and realized that all of them were eager to be like it, but were inferior." (Socrates)
"If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be or to be acted upon, or to act." (Socrates) -
3.5. For all its reputation as one of Plato's masterpieces, Phaedo falls short of the previous texts leading up to Socrates' last day on earth. This one is convoluted, dull at times, minorly enlightening at others, but mostly without emotion until the final two pages. I'll write some more thoughts down either here or in the compiled review. That is Plato's first "tetralogy" done, if you go by the ordering of Thrasyllus (if it was indeed him).
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U ovom dijalogu u dijalogu, Fedon prepričava Sokratov poslednji dan, nekoliko sati pre nego što će popiti otrov. Platon nije tamo ("mislim da je bio bolestan"), što daje misliti. Možda imamo pred sobom prvog nepouzdanog pripovedača u istoriji književnosti?
Vraćamo se ovde teoriji formi i teoriji sećanja ("učenje nije saznavanje ničeg novog, već samo sećanje na ono što već znamo", ponavlja iz Menona). Ali ipak, "filozofija je priprema za smrt", tako da se najduže zadržavamo na postojanju i besmrtnosti duše.
Telo nakon smrti truli i kroz zemlju polako postaje deo drugih tela, ali duša ne. Duša ode na neko drugo mesto, a odatle u Had. Pa kasnije uđe u drugo telo.
Neki argumenti su ovde poprilično loši ("ne može biti da sve samo umire, mora nešto i da oživljava"), a Sokrat bitno menja svoje mišljenje o besmrtnosti. Na svom suđenju u
Odbrana Sokratova, kaže da se ne treba plašiti smrti, jer smrt je sigurno jedna od dve stvari. Možda je to samo san bez snova, potpuno miran, a takav san je najbolji. Ako ne, onda je smrt prelazak duše na neko drugo mesto, gde ćemo sresti jako interesantne ljude. Kako god okreneš, nije loše. U Fedonu zaboravlja na san i insistira na besmrtnosti duše. Da li to čini blizina smrti? Da li pod stare dane svi postajemo vernici?
Platon generalno, a pogotovo Fedon, je imao ogroman uticaj na hrišćanstvo. Duša u hrišćanstvu nije postojala sve dok se Toma Akvinski nije oduševio Platonom i postavio dušu u centar hrišćanske dogme (usput zaboravio na reinkarnaciju). Gledajući tako, ovo je verovatno i Platonovo najuticajnije delo. Ja bih rekao, ne i najbolje. -
But Plato, I think, was sick
Symposium , the first Platonic dialogue I came across, surprised me in its readability. The same thing had happened to me, a few years before, with the works of Sophocles. It is amazing enough that these texts have reached us thanks to a precarious chain of transmission; but even more so is that, after so long, we can still access them so easily. It is something that happens to me only with Ancient Greek literature (although not with all of it), especially with the theater, with Plato's dialogues, and also with the Gospels, which are Ancient Greek literature after all. The texts generated in other cultures, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead , or the Confucian Analects , or the Nordic sagas, may be interesting to me, but I can't read them with this ease. They have the mark of something strange and foreign, even though I find in them the same universal human concerns. With Plato, the opposite happens: sometimes the topics seem boring or absurd, as is in fact the case with Phaedo , but the wonder of reading them is enough to keep me going.
Phaedo has for me many great moments, beyond this central theme, which is that of the immortality of the soul. Most of it takes place during Socrates' last afternoon, when his friends go to visit him in prison. Socrates seems serene, even slightly excited, at the prospect of death. And he talks, of course. He explicitly says that this is going to be a second Apology, but dedicated exclusively to his friends, a private and personal text while the other had been a public plea. He then defends the Platonic worldview - it is a fairly complete exposition - and extends himself on the subject of the soul and its immortality. He proves his arguments absurdly, exercising with his friends the last loving strokes of his maieutic ("ah, dear Cebes, but then you will agree that ..."). The decisive contribution of Platonism to Christian theology has never been clearer to me than in this dialogue. It's a slightly interesting thing, but not more than what I might have learned from reading Wikipedia or Plato for Dummies . What I really find fascinating about Phaedo are the margins of this main text, which I could not have read elsewhere than in the dialogue itself.
Unlike what happens in other dialogues, the title of this one does not refer to the opponent (or the victim) of Socrates' turn, but to his narrator. In the first scene, Phaedo of Elis, who is one of the disciples who was present that last afternoon, meets another philosopher, Echecrates, some time after the execution, and relates to him with prodigious memory all that Socrates said. His story follows, from there, the form of a classic dialogue, although on a couple of occasions Echecrates interrupts Phaedo to marvel at what he tells him. We cannot help but think, at the moment, that it is not just a dialogue within another, because the first scene is also part of a larger text, which would be the dialogue between Plato and ourselves. It is the system of Chinese boxes that we find in The Thousand and One Nights , or in the novels of Juan José Saer, or in infinite other places from then on. It is a procedure that, now that I think about it, also appears profusely in the epic, so of course in the Iliad , although perhaps what makes it unique in Plato's case is that it also seems a reflection of his own philosophical system: from the concrete to the abstract, from the immediate situation to the mere words.
Phaedo begins his story at the moment in which Socrates' friends arrive at the prison. Xanthippe, the philosopher's infamous wife, is there with one of their children, and seeing the friends arrive makes her extremely emotional. "This is the last time you will talk to your friends," she says. Socrates, under his breath, says to one of them "Someone take her away from here." The insertion of this quasi-humorous passage, and above all very human, if perhaps a bit misogynistic, gives an extra relief to the entire dialogue. It is not that the story is only the excuse for the Platonic disquisition; Plato evidently wants to, and on top of it he is able to, make a credible narration of those last moments of Socrates. When I read this passage, and others like it, I at least feel that things could very well have happened like that. Also at the beginning, one of the friends transmits to Socrates a warning from the executioner: not to talk too much, because talking too much seems to “agitate” the condemned, and in the end they have to give them two or three times the indicated dose of hemlock. Socrates, whom we know as one of the great talkers of Western history, laughs and comments they better prepare two or three glasses. The joke, inserted in such a solemn occasion, seems so typical of the Socratic ethos that I also blindly believe it.
Then there are some pathetic moments drawing closer to the end. At one point, Phaedo says that Socrates, as he used to do, was playing with his hair - with Phaedo's hair, right? -, because Greek men were not afraid of this type of physical expression of affection, or of others, and then he says, as if to himself: “maybe you will cut them tomorrow”, alluding to what was at that time a sign of mourning. Later, when the executioner gives him the hemlock (that poison that is famous only thanks to this moment), Socrates watches him as he leaves the room and says that he is a good man, that many nights he would come to chat with him and ask him if needed something. What did Aristotle say? Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas : “Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend”. Well, I say: truth is my friend, but Plato is a better friend.
In one of his famous and later transcribed talks, his talk dedicated to immortality, Borges comments on Phaedo , and observes the famous phrase: Plato, I think, was sick . I don't know if Borges really read the dialogue, because he attributes the finding to Max Brod, who as far as I know wrote a novel – which I wasn’t able to find - whose protagonist is a boy who is obsessed with this Platonic dialogue. Not a curious choice for Brod, who today is known above all as the friend who did not burn Franz Kafka's texts: one of these refractory figures in the history of literature, built in the shadow of an admired and more talented other, like James Boswell, or Bioy Casares, or Stanislau Joyce, or -in his beginnings- Plato himself. By evoking the phrase, Borges also gives it a typically Borgian inflection, turns it into Platón, creo, estaba enfermo . He says that it is the only time that Plato is mentioned in his own dialogues, and I know that Borges would have liked it to be so (me too), but this mention is only one of three: the other two times, Plato is mentioned in the Apology , as one of those present at the trial of Socrates, and also as one of the friends willing to pay the 3,000 denarii bail. After considering the classical interpretation of this curious self-insertion, Borges concludes that the philosophical reasons are secondary and that "Plato felt the insurmountable literary beauty" of declaring himself absent from the very situation he is narrating.
However, let us return to the classical interpretation, which is to suppose that the author of the dialogue meant something with this absence. Phaedo, to begin with, is very sure of Plato's absence that afternoon, but nevertheless seems to doubt his reasons. He was sick, I think. So, should we think that Plato alleged a flu so as not to say goodbye to his friend and teacher? The fact of his absence, whether it is true or not, and in this way, makes me think that he already wants to express a distance between the two - at least a philosophical distancing. The Socrates of the Apology and that of Phaedo are considerably different. In the first dialogue, for example, Socrates declares that he is not afraid of death, because in the event that the afterlife exists, he trusts the gods, and, if it does not exist, then there’s nothing to fear. In the Phaedo , he deals with demonstrating the immortality of the soul, with a certainty that he had not found before. It is a distance first of all temporary: Socrates spent only a few months in prison until he was executed, but years passed between Plato writing the Apology , perhaps the first of his texts, and the Phaedo. , which belongs to its intermediate period. The Plato, I think, was sick , as opposed to his presence pointed out twice in the Apology , tells us that Plato did not want this dialogue to be taken literally, as a truthful account of the facts. It is even possible that he was present, but Socrates did not say what he attributes to him. The exposition on the soul is already purely Platonic philosophy, and the character of Socrates is more its enunciator than the stinging Athenian (the “gadfly”) of the first dialogues.
It is a transformation that makes me think a little about the origins of Christianity. The historical Jesus that we can intuit in the early Gospels does not look very much like the idealized, refined version of Jesus that Paul and the Gospel of John give us. The parallels with Socrates are many, to the point that it seems to me that this story, like Platonism, paved the way for Christ. We have the unjust accusation of the teacher, the trial, and above all the sentence that seems inexplicable, especially because it is meekly accepted by the condemned, as if he knows something that no one else knows. The disciples will spend centuries arguing about that acceptance, trying to make sense of it. And they will reach similar conclusions, although Socratism has not become a religion. It was close to do so, though. If we have the Apology as a public plea, then there is the Phaedo as a private dialogue and for friends, that is, initiates, who receive a revelation that is not within reach. of all. It is a more selective Gnostic writing, the beginning of a mystery religion. Plato also could not understand Socrates' final meekness, and had to invent this dialogue to give him a justification: only if he had believed in the immortality of the soul he was justified in allowing himself to be killed so easily, just as the certainty of the resurrection could explain the sacrifice of Jesus. We don't really know what Socrates' trial meant, nor did Plato, but the conviction that there is something muddled and intense in that story, something to be understood, to be resolved, makes it so important. I am not interested in Phaedo as a metaphysical text, but as a testimony of this obsession. Which is to say: as literature. -
¡Por Zeus! Este es el último -y más impactante- diálogo socrático de Platón. Sócrates está en su celda, después de haber sido condenado a beber cicuta, y les da sus motivos a sus pupilos para haber elegido cumplir su sentencia, es decir, la muerte, y no escapar o apelar. Fedón es el nombre de uno de sus pupilos, quien fue testigo directo de sus últimos momentos y sus últimas palabras. Platón no estuvo porque al parecer cayó enfermo, pero transcribe lo que Fedón le contó. A pesar de ser una de las mayores muestras de la lógica y Mayéutica socráticas, en realidad se trata de la búsqueda de un aliciente para sus discipulos: quiere darles la tranquilidad de que irá a un lugar mejor, y de que el alma existe y es indestructible. Estos son los orígenes del pensamiento platónico: la relación entre cuerpo y alma, y también las bases del pensamiento occidental (incluido el Cristianismo). Pero a diferencia de este último, Sócrates plantea la posibilidad de la reencarnación en repetidas ocasiones hasta que esa alma se gasta y perece con el cuerpo. No obstante, precisa que el objetivo de la virtud, de perseguir el bien, lo bello y lo bueno es justamente evitar que esa alma perezca y que así ascienda a otro plano, siendo indestructible. Por ello insta a sus pupilos a obrar siempre en el bien para purificar su alma y alcanzar la inmortalidad. Según dialogan, quienes han estado demasiado carnalizados en su vida, es decir, se han dejado llevar por los placeres y pasiones, sufren una especie de fusión de alma y cuerpo: su alma se encarna y perece con el cuerpo cuando éste muere. Todo esto suena fabulístico a día de hoy, pero en realidad estamos frente a un momento histórico en el pensamiento y la ciencia: Sócrates y sus pupilos se preguntan por el origen de las cosas: de la vida, del hombre, de la existencia misma. Tratan de buscar el origen de todo: si es la esencia misma de las cosas o es el pensamiento (o la mente) la que crea la realidad. Por más que Sócrates suene seguro de lo que dice, la verdad deja entrever que no lo sabe a ciencia cierta. Es más, como a la mitad del libro deja abierta la posibilidad de que no haya nada más allá de la muerte: ni alma, ni Hades, ni reencarnaciones. Pero, luego continúa con su discurso de esperanza, lo cual, deja intuir que lo hacía más por la tranquilidad de sus pupilos que por conocimiento verdadero. Y es que la única manera de saberlo era muriendo... Sin embargo, el final es una recreación narrada del Hades, en la que cita a Homero y La odisea, y trata de dejar a sus discípulos con el encargo de hacer el bien para alcanzar esa especie de "paraíso del filósofo" que se supone habrá en el Hades. Sí, para Sócrates eran los filósofos que obraran en la virtud los que alcanzarían este lugar. Finalmente, la narración se torna algo triste, Sócrates debe beber el veneno, sacan a sus familiares, mujeres y niños, y se quedan sus pupilos, quienes lloran desconsoladamente, pero callan cuando éste les dice que precisamente ha mandado a sacar a las mujeres y niños para no ver esas escenas. Ahora, pese a toda la tragedia final (aunque se describe una muerte dulce), queda espacio para el humor (no se sabe si así pasó, fue invento de Fedón o cosecha de Platón). Contrario a lo que se pudiese pensar en un momento tan solemne, las últimas palabras de Sócrates fueron: "Eh Critón, recuerda que le debemos un gallo a Asclepio"... También podría pensarse que fue puesto para que se recordase lo justo y recto que fue hasta el final, pero prefiero la idea del chascarrillo.
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Plato on life after death
26 October 2012
I have noticed that a number of people consider that this text is the crowning piece that defines the Western philosophical method. In a way I agree and in a way I disagree. In one sense one can see how the idea of the separation of the body and the soul has come down to us and which has formed a major part of Western spiritual thought and in turn forms one of the bases of what I tend to term as our civil religion. However there are two things that it is not. First of all it is not Christian, and secondly it is not Socratic.
I will deal with both in turn and I will outline my argument about how it is not Socratic first and then how it is not Christian secondly. Before I go on, one of my primary sources of the fact that it is not Socratic is my Classical History lecturer David Hester (who is now retired). Secondly, since this not an academic essay to be handed up to a university to be marked I will not be referencing or sourcing my arguments. However, if anybody wishes to debate either point I more than welcome them, since that is what the comment section below the commentary is for.
Anyway, the first thing that stood out when I read this work was that it differs from a lot of other Socratic dialogues as it is a second hand account. Most of the Socratic dialogues come across as first hand accounts, and we know that Plato was present at the trial because we are told that he was (and I also suspect that he was present when Crito visited Socrates on the night before his execution). However, this particular work is based around a conversation that occurred months, or even a couple of years, after the event. We are told that Plato was not present at the execution (apparently he was sick), so we are relying not just on Plato being present at this conversation, but also on the accuracy of Phaedo, who claims to have been present at the execution. As such we see that Plato appears to be distancing not so much himself, but rather Socrates, from the philosophy that is being outlined.
Secondly, the theory of forms is being discussed in this work (I am hesitant to call it a dialogue because it is not actually a dialogue in the way that the other Platonic works are dialogues). The theory of forms, as my lecturer explained, was purely a Platonic idea and not a Socratic one (and I will give my reasoning below). The theory of forms, though, is the idea that everything in our reality is flawed, however they are shadows of a much greater reality. Therefore a table that we see is not a perfect table but rather a shadow of the real table. We see this argument developed elsewhere, and in particular with the cave analogy that Plato expounds in The Republic.
Thirdly, this particular dialogue deals with what I would term as pseudo-scientific speculation, in particular the nature of the body and the soul, and what happens to the soul after death. We note that the Socrates in this dialogue talks about the purpose of life is to pursue knowledge, or gnosis. However, and while I have not read the Socratic dialogues in Greek, I get the idea that Socrates is not so much interested in gnosis, but rather in sophos, or wisdom. In the dialogues of Socrates that I have read and commented on I have noticed that Socrates' main focus is on how were are to live in society, which is the idea of wisdom, as opposed to gaining knowledge of things, which is gnosis.
Finally, we have Socrates, for a large part, lecturing, which is something that Socrates simply does not do. Granted, in the Apology, we do have him providing a defence, but even in his defence we see him falling back on what we call the Socratic method, that is taking the position of ignorance and asking a series of questions that tend to guide the person in the argument around to your point of view. However, it is interesting to note that there are a lot of spurious arguments and questions that seem to come from nowhere only to try to bring the point around to what Plato wanted to prove.
Now, I make the statement about it not being Christian. Most of you, I hope, would look at me oddly and say 'of course it is not Christian, idiot, it was written by an Ancient Greek five hundred years before Christ walked the Earth'. However, while this text may not be Christian, it has had a tremendous impact upon Christian thought (along with other Platonic works). The first and main thing that has influenced Western thought is the idea that the body and the soul are connected but not the same. Many of us, and it has permeated the church for centuries, believe that when we die our body rots in the ground and our spirit goes to heaven or to hell. Just take a look at Dante where we see him travelling through hell and seeing it full of spirits. That, my friend, is Platonic.
However, here is an extract from 1 Corinthians chapter 15:
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain ... but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.
So, as you can see from this passage (which has been truncated a bit, but can be found in its entirety here), the biblical position on life after death is not a spirit drifting around a spiritual realm, but a restored and resurrected physical body in a restored and resurrected physical world. Oh, and there is also discussions and proofs on reincarnation in the Phaedo as well, which as we all know, it pretty much not a Christian belief (but was, in fact, an Ancient Greek belief).
Now, the other interesting thing I noticed is that I recently read a book called Gospel and Wisdom, and in that book it tries to identify what it is that the bible terms as worldly wisdom. The writer suggested that it was attempting to determine biblical truths through human reason and logic. Pretty much as soon as I began to read this text it struck me that this is probably what he was referring too. Here we have a discussion on the idea of life after death from what effectively is pure speculation. Remember that, according to Christianity, the only person that can actually comment on life after death is Jesus Christ and that is because he died and rose again. As such, according to the bible, he is the only person with authority to speak on the subject because he is the only historical person that has ever travelled there (in an identifiable historical period) and come back to talk about it. -
Phaedo would have been much easier to understand if he communicated with someone who had more brain capacity than a chestnut.
In summary:
Socrates: Bla bla bla!
Cebes and Simmias: But why do you think that!?
Socrates: Poop bla bla bla!
Cebes and Simmias: Oh.....but what about goop de floop?
Socrates: No! No goop de floop! Poop bla bla bla!
Cebes and Simmas: Oh.... okay.
Socrates: Do you understand?
Cebes and Simmas: No...we don't want to offend you because you're about to die.
Socrates: I WANT to talk about this.
Cebes and Simmas: Well....if you're sure...
Socrates: I love talking about this!!! Poop bla bla bla!
Cebes and Simmas: Ok.........
Cebes and Simmas (aside): I don't understand him.... Socrates, who can we talk to about this when you die?
No wonder Socrates thought death was a cure for life. -
---Update 2017---
I did a quick read-through of this while traveling a couple of days ago. What stuck out to me this time was Simmias's analogy of the soul to the attunement of a lyre. One of Socartes's objections is that the attunement theory is inconsistent with the theory of recollection, itself not established, but also that the attunement theory does not explain the soul's rule of the body. I am wondering: if the soul rules the body, is this not rather proof that the soul and body are inextricably linked and not separate entities?
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Good stuff. What I find interesting here are some of the thoughts that melded so well with Christianity later on. Denying the physical pleasures of the body to discover spiritual truths is a wonderful ideal, yet if not tempered by the message of grace from the New Testament can lead to extremes in self-denial.
The final point of the dialogue was to prove the immortality of the soul. After several attempts by argument, he resorts to mythology to explain his belief. Indeed, it is difficult when discussing things metaphysical to stay purely in the realm of reasoning, so no blame there. I love wandering around in his arguments to and from contraries. At what point does hot become cold and cold become hot? I have no idea, but as an argument for his point this fails because it depends on the shaky premise (that his companions seem to accept without question) that our souls existed before in hades, which is as difficult to prove as that they exist after death.
Great, thought-provoking dialogue. -
„Și de unde să-l luăm, Socrate, pe descântătorul minunat ce vindecă de spaime, de unde, dacă tu ne părăsești?”
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محاورة "فيدون" - او: في خلود النفس - تنتمي إلى مرحلة "نضج" أفلاطون، ولكن في رأي المترجم وأستاذ الفلسفة الدكتور عزت قرني في مقاله النقدي بنهاية الكتاب، فإن هذه المحاورة بعيدة عن أن تكون من الأعمال "المعتمدة" لأفلاطون، بمعنى أنها لا تحتوي على رأيه النهائي في القضية التي يناقشها، بل إن أسلوبها يميل أكثر إلى البحث والتأمل والشك أكثر من ان تكون ذات رأي قاطع في خلود النفس. أما أراؤه القاطعة فيفترض أن نجدها في محاورات "الجمهورية" و"فايدروس"و"المأدبة". وبالرغم من ذلك فهذه المحاورة تحتوي على أوضح تفسير لرأي أفلاطون في نظرية المُثُل وهي الأساس في فكره الفلسفي.
لا يظهر أفلاطون بشخصه في أي من محاوراته، وهو ينسب آراءه كلها إلى أستاذه سقراط بطل هذه المحاورات. في المحاورات الأولى (مثلا: يوثيفرو والدفاع وكريتو، وهي المحاورات الثلاثة التي ترجمها عزت قرني تحت عنوان "محاكمة سقراط") يظهر سقراط التاريخي كما نعرفه بأسلوبه الساخر وتركيزه على تعريف وتحديد المفاهيم في أذهان من يحاورهم. أما محاورة فيدون، فرغم انها تحكي عن الساعات الأخيرة لسقراط في سجنه قبل إعدامه بشرب السم، إلا أن أسلوب ومحتوى المحاورة يختلف كثيرا عن فلسفة سقراط البسيطة والعملية.
وهناك شيء مثير للسخرية قليلا في هذه المحاورة، فسقراط هو الذي يتكلم تقريبا طوال الوقت، ثم يسأل "محاوريه" من حين ﻵخر إن كانوا يتفقون معه، وفي أغلب الأحيان لا نجد منهم إلا عبارات الموافقة التامة بدون أي تعليق، أي أن الشكل الظاهري للمحاورة ما هو إلا فرصة لعرض آراء أفلاطون
في المحاورة هناك أربع براهين على خلود النفس، تدور أساسا حول نظرية المُثُل وحول نظرية التذكر لدى أفلاطون : أن النفس تدرك الشيء المحسوس من خلال "مثال" لهذا الشيء في ذهنها، وهذا المثال لا يعتمد على الحواس الجسدية، وبالتالي فالنفس "تعرف" هذه المثال لأنها قبل دخولها في الجسد كانت تعيش إلى جوار الآلهة وترى هذه المُثُل بوضوح لأنها كانت غير مقيدة بقيود الجسد والحواس. وعندما تدخل النفس إلى الجسد فإنها "تتذكر" هذه المُثُل التي تدرك الأشياء المحسوسة عن طريقها.
وعندما يعترض أحد الحضور على أن هذا يمكن أن يثبت فقط وجود النفس قبل الميلاد ولكنه لا يثبت خلودها بعد الموت، يظهر برهان آخر: فالنفس "بسيطة" وليست مركبة مثل الأشياء المادية، ذلك لأنها تستطيع أن تعرف المُثُل، ومادامت المُثُل بسيطة غير مركبة، ومادام الشبيه يعرف الشبيه، فإن النفس بسيطة أيضا غير مركبة، والبسيط لا يمكن ان يتحلل أو يتفكك إلى ما هو أبسط منه، فالنفس إذن خالدة
يقدم المترجم للمحاورة بمقدمة طويلة، ويختمها بمقالة نقدية كتبها بالفرنسية وترجمها بنفسه. ويلاحظ الدكتور عزت قرني أن أفلاطون بالرغم من تأكيده المستمر على دور العقل في الوصول إلى حلول فلسفية، فإنه يتحدث عن خلود "النفس" بدون أن يحدد ما هي هذه النفس بالضبط وما هي طبيعتها.
وفي نهاية الكتاب مقالة نقدية أخرى لمفكر فرنسي هو جورج رودييه يحلل فيها براهين خلود النفس الأربعة، وفي رايه أن البرهان الثالث على خلود النفس -أن النفس خالدة لأنها من نفس طبيعة المُثُل الخالدة - هو أهم هذه البراهين.
كتاب مهم للمهتمين بالفلسفة الكلاسيكية اليونانية، والمحاورة بصرف النظر عن محتواها الفلسفي تعتبر من الكتابات الأدبية الرفيعة في الأدب الإغريقي الكلاسيكي -
Thank goodness Plato idealized Socrates so much otherwise so much about him would have been lost. I kind of put off reading this one because I knew that it dealt with death and the human soul, which is a subject that hangs over my head on occasion. Big mistake! This was as wonderful as Plato's other works, I always give Socrates this kind of saucy attitude in my mind, he is so quick! I wonder how much of this was actually said or what just carried over from other discussions with Socrates during his lifetime. I actually found a lot of relief at the onset of the great ending, if a man like Socrates can go down in this style (ok so poison is not terribly heroic, but at least he had a lot of great last lines) then maybe I shouldn't be so afraid as well. Wonderful dialogues on the soul, absolutely wonderful.
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I'll admit it presents traditional presuppositions in a clear, direct way. And it admits itself based on pure speculation: "Of course no reasonable person ought to insist that the facts are exactly as I have described them, but that either this or something very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitation" (114d).
But then we get the wholesale assumptions about life's proper order:
"When soul and body are both in the same place, nature teaches the one to serve and be subject, the other to rule and govern. In this relation, which do you think resembles the divine and which the mortal part? Don't you think that it is the nature of the divine to rule and direct, and that of the mortal to be subject and serve?" (80a) -
Jiwa. Socrates bercerita mengenai jiwa. Paling aku tertarik ialah dengan masalah 1+2
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De los mejores clásicos que he leido, el tema es ejemplar hasta la saciedad. En los últimos instantes de su vida, Sócrates, defiende através de diferentes refutaciones la inmortalidad del alma. No se lee como una simple obra filosófica, sino que llega a ser una obra dramática, con un final correcto para ello, emocionante.
(recomendación: editorial Gredos, prólogo y traducción: Carlos García Gual) -
read this for a philosophy course im currently watching !
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Being 33, and in a mood which is due to my weariness with the world, I can definitely sympathize with Socrates' character in this. As I scroll though face book, seeing as I am kind of addicted to anything that resembles social media, I see so many injustices calling out to me for my sad emoji face and/or anger emoji face. So many causes of injustice one could stand against.....for what though? So that I can be put on a list as a troublemaker only to be executed later on when I get too big for my britches? To be or not to be? To watch the world slowly kill itself as it is undoubtedly being run by maniacs into a future which is looking more and more like a cross between 1984 and the Terminator dystopia?
The other day I saw a polar bear die of exhaustion. It was a horrible sight to behold. I wonder what Socrates would say? Either way, they put Socrates to death for something other than causing the death of a human being. This is what this world does to those who dare to question the purported "wisdom" of the time. So, really it doesn't surprise me at all that the world is the way it is today. It has kind of been leading up to this, like the last dying exhausted breath of a polar bear. I just wonder, if when it comes my time, will I remain on the sidelines not participating in the tragic comedy of human existence, watching like a man outside of a fishbowl, disinterested and unattached to all the insanity, or will I act and thereby earn myself a cup of good ole poison hemlock?
DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS NOT AN ACTUAL REVIEW OF THE TEXT, BUT MORE LIKE A POETICAL EXCURSION INTO THE ARTIST'S MOOD WHILE READING THE TEXT. THE ARTIST FINDING PARALLELS WITH THE INJUSTICE OF SOCRATES' DEATH AND THE INJUSTICE IN OUR OWN WORLD AND TIME. -
Μονίμως ξεχνιέμαι και δεν ανεβάζω τα βιβλία στο goodreads όταν τα τελειώνω ή δεν ανεβάζω τις κριτικές στην ώρα μου.
Τέλος πάντων.
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Ο Φαίδρος μου άρεσε περισσότερο από τον Γοργία, αλλά σχεδόν εξίσου με τον Φαίδωνα και το Συμπόσιο. Τον κατατάσσω στην κατηγορία "διάλογοι του Πλάτωνα που μπορούν να διαβαστούν και από κάποιον παντελώς ανιδεο από φιλοσοφία", όπως έκανα και με το Συμπόσιο.
Long story short, ο Φαίδρος αφορά ξανά το ζήτημα του έρωτα, αλλά έχει και μια πουτανιά - στο δεύτερο μισό του διαλόγου, το θέμα γυρνάει στη ρητορική και σε κάνει να αναρωτιέσαι "αν τόση ώρα μιλανε για έρωτα, που κολλάει η ρητορική;" και αυτό το αφήνω στην κρίση σας γιατί με παιδεψε αρκετά σαν ερώτημα όσο έγραφα την εργασία μου στο αντίστοιχο διάλογο.
Τίθεται πάλι ο προβληματισμός "τι είναι τελικά ο πλατωνικός έρωτας;" και τίθενται θέματα όπως το πως οφείλουμε να επιλέγουμε σύντροφο, ποια είναι η σχέση της φιλοσοφίας με τον έρωτα, τι είναι η ψυχή και πως συνδέεται με τα δύο θέματα του διαλόγου και άλλα υποβόσκοντα ζητήματα όπως η παιδεραστία στην αρχαία Ελλάδα και η ωφελιμότητα των σαρκικών ηδονών.
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Ήταν ένα ευχάριστο ανάγνωσμα, και σίγουρα θα το πρότεινα σε κάποιον. Δεν γράφω ��ερισσότερα για να μη φάτε σπόιλερζ αν θέλετε να το διαβάσετε, σας ταζω όμως αναλυτική κριτική για όταν επιστρέψω στον Σινεντόκοσμο, νε;
ΥΓ. για πιθανές συνδέσεις με άλλους διαλόγους, θα μιλήσουμε εκεί, δε θα σας ζαλίσω τώρα -
Il n'était pas inutile de relire ce dialogue, habituellement présenté avec "l'Apologie de Socrate" et "Criton". Ce dialogue est l'un des plus célèbre du fameux philosophe athénien. Il relate la mort de Socrate, condamné à boire la ciguë par un jugement l'ayant accusé d'impiété et de corruption de la jeunesse. Profitant d'un sursis dû à un pèlerinage commémorant l'époque de Thésée, ses amis le retrouvent dans sa prison, et profitent des derniers instants en sa compagnie pour philosopher sur la mort. Si Platon évoque le thème de l'immortalité de l'âme, et de son jugement après la mort en fonction de la moralité des actes accompli lors de la vie (en particulier dans la lettre VII), il n'est nulle part aussi complet qu'en ce dialogue sur le sujet. Voilà donc où ce mythe égyptien devient fameux. Sans doute les gentils furent préparés par ce texte à l'adoption de la chrétienté, sans doute la chrétienté a t elle été aussi inspirée par ces mythes. Même en restant sceptique aux idées avancées par Socrate, tout à fait à rebours de l'empirisme, il est impossible de rester insensible à la beauté du texte, et à la finesse, à l'honnêteté et au courage de cet homme remarquable, qui meure comme il a vécu.
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"Critone, dobbiamo un gallo ad Asclepio, dateglielo, non ve ne dimenticate".
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Socrates is dead. Phaedo has witnessed Socrates's death, and happens to run into a friend or acquaintance named Echecrates a few days later in the Greek city of Phlius. Socrates having had a reputation as an exceedingly wise man, Echecrates would like to know exactly what he said before his death. "Let's do this"... no, my mistake, I think that was Gary Gilmore. Where were we? Yes, that's right- Phaedo, apparently a reservoir of stamina, obliges Echecrates by reciting everything that Socrates said verbatim, if you can believe that, as well as the interjections from the others who were there. The subject of their discussion, at least in the beginning, is why Socrates seems so unnaturally solicitous of death- or whether it really should be unnatural to think of death solicitously. In Crito, Socrates has even refused an attempt by his friend to help him escape from prison before his execution.
Socrates proposes the existence of a soul that throughout life is shackled to a corrupting body; the body leads the soul away from the path of wisdom and towards vice, desire and pettiness. For a philosopher, who should value wisdom above all else, death is an opportunity for the soul to exist, finally, unfettered by eating, drinking, sleeping, pissing, shitting, sexual desire, etc. This is asceticism, sainthood. Or it's dread, which is where I think a lot of my early interest in Buddhism came from. Socrates's view seems in line with the Buddha's Noble Truths (not the only similarity this dialogue has with Buddhism)- that life is suffering, that suffering is caused by attachment, etc. A modern view might disregard the concept of a soul altogether; but if 'mind' has taken the place of 'soul' to describe that which is unseen, that general modern view would probably hold that real wisdom is in finding harmony between the the mind and the body and recognizing their inseparability; that real wisdom has to account for pissing, shitting, drinking and fucking, as well as getting sick and shopping in the grocery store while terrible music plays- both the pleasures and burdens of having a body in the only world we know. Socrates's view is unlike, say, Descartes's mind-body dualism, because Socrates acknowledges that the body has an influence on the soul- he is just disgusted that the soul must toil on earth, gradually habituated to corruption.
I think that some of George Orwell's comments on Gandhi seem applicable to Socrates's view here:Gandhi's teachings cannot be squared with the belief that Man is the measure of all things and that our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have. They make sense only on the assumption that God exists and the world of solid objects is an illusion to be escaped from.
Satisfied with Socrates's answer? No, Socrates's interlocutors weren't, either. That's all well and good Socrates, says either Simmias or Cebes, I'm afraid I can't remember at this point (these are two of the guys, presumably Socrates's friends, sitting with Socrates and Phaedo), but surely you must be aware that many people fear that the soul is simply extinguished upon the death of the body. Socrates makes a little joke about those who are unlucky enough to die during gales- oops, there goes your soul. Then he moves into the first of his arguments for the immortality of the soul, which I would have called the Argument from Opposites but which the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy informs me is known as the Cyclical Argument. The idea as I understand it is that all things come from their opposite states: that which is larger had to have been at one point smaller, for example. Furthermore, there are opposite processes that exist between these pairs: the process of increase and the process of decrease. If we take the opposites of being awake and being asleep (to choose the example that seemed clearest to me, although yes, through Socrates's slight-of-hand we've moved from a pair of comparatives to a pair of actual opposites), it's clear that we can only awaken from the state of sleep, and that we can only fall asleep from the state of having been awake. Therefore, since life and death are also opposites, the same relation must hold true- there must be a certain place where the souls of the dead congregate, waiting to be born into new bodies (unless, Socrates suggests, they've achieved a philosophical purity that presumably brings the cycle to an end- another similarity with Buddhism). The purpose of our lives therefore, as in plural, is a gradual process of refinement and attunement, to prepare us for when we move on to...well, something, or maybe nothing. Socrates gets to that at the end, actually.
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life...No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.
In his next argument, the Argument from Recollection, Socrates suggests that a certain kind of knowledge is in reality recollection. Two sticks held side-by-side, for example, may seem equal, but fall short of true Equality. Certain things may be beautiful, but only because they share in the Beautiful. A verdict in court may be just, but only because it is one of many possible representations of Justice, which is nonphysical and thus inaccessible to us in this world. This, again according to the IEP, is arguably the first mention in Plato's writing of his theory of Forms. How can we have knowledge of true Equality, or Beauty, or Justice, if these things don't exist in the world we inhabit? It must be that we recollect them, from a time before we were born; hence, the soul exists before birth.
Great. Problem solved. Are we ready to die without trepidation now? Well...okay, sure, get back to me on that. Fix yourself a stiff drink and come back to this review. Not to fear, though; Socrates still has two more arrows in his quiver, which I am not going to get into here because, frankly, it would involve a lot more writing, but which you can read about in the IEP entry,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/phaedo/
...or in Phaedo itself. But I'm finding the experience of going back to Plato strange, and Phaedo is particularly strange. I appreciate it the way one might appreciate a dream, or an acid trip, or a tropical depression, or a séance. While Socrates makes claims here that are entirely unfalsifiable, Phaedo is moving. First of all, the subject matter is inherently moving. Secondly, Plato is the beginning of formal logic; listening to Socrates speak with his interlocutors, you become aware that these humans, our brothers, are learning to argue, exploring this thing called logic, testing out, like a bicycle, what it can do and what it can't (and we still haven't quite mastered it, have we?). None of the speakers are trying to satisfy their own egos; rather, they want to see if it's possible to discover the truth of the matter. The problem, as Phaedo reports having worried about halfway through the discussion, is that "...these matters are inherently obscure." Uh yeah, you can say that again.
Then again, I have to admit that I may be very wrong about what's going on here. Socrates says something towards the end that I found extremely odd. No, not the part about the concentric rings of water, where he speculates on the precise geographic location of the place where the souls of the dead reside, waiting to be born again; or that those who are set free from the cycle of, well, let's call it metempsychosis, end up on the earth's true surface, which to us is as accessible as what we regard as the earth's surface to fish. No, it's after all this that Socrates says,Of course, no reasonable man ought to insist that the facts are exactly as I have described them. But that either this or something very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitations- since there is certainly evidence that the soul is deathless- this, I think, is both a fitting contention and a belief worth risking; for the risk is a noble one. We should use such accounts to enchant ourselves with...
This echoes a statement Socrates makes towards the middle of the dialogue, after Cebes asks him what to do about the "child" inside each of us who fears death. Socrates responds, "What you should do...is to pronounce an enchantment over him every day until you have charmed his fears away."
"We should use such accounts to enchant ourselves with." Maybe Socrates is right. Maybe we should, and maybe the occasionally tortured logic in Phaedo is all an attempt to lend that enchantment the guise of truth. Or maybe we shouldn't. If someone like Ernest Becker is correct, there is nothing more important than how we choose to deal with the fear of death. Either way, these are odd words coming from a man whose reputation is of a skeptic, committed to wisdom above all else. -
[ μόλις ξεμπερδεψω με τις απανωτές αναγνώσεις του για τη σχολή, θα σας δώσω και την άποψη μου ]
