Plato:Phaedo

The Phaedo is 1 of the about widely read dialogues written past the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.  Information technology claims to recount the events and conversations that occurred on the day that Plato'due south teacher, Socrates (469-399 B.C.East.), was put to death by the state of Athens.  Information technology is the final episode in the serial of dialogues recounting Socrates' trial and decease.  The earlier Euthyphro dialogue portrayed Socrates in discussion outside the courtroom where he was to be prosecuted on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth; the Amends described his defense earlier the Athenian jury; and the Crito described a conversation during his subsequent imprisonment.  The Phaedo now brings things to a close by describing the moments in the prison house jail cell leading upward to Socrates' death from poisoning past use of hemlock.

Amongst these "trial and death" dialogues, the Phaedo is unique in that it presents Plato's ain metaphysical, psychological, and epistemological views; thus it belongs to Plato's middle period rather than with his earlier works detailing Socrates' conversations regarding ideals.  Known to ancient commentators by the title On the Soul, the dialogue presents no less than four arguments for the soul's immortality.  It as well contains discussions of Plato'due south doctrine of knowledge as recollection, his business relationship of the soul's relationship to the body, and his views about causality and scientific explanation.  Most importantly of all, Plato sets forth his most distinctive philosophical theory—the theory of Forms—for what is arguably the get-go time. So, the Phaedo merges Plato'due south own philosophical worldview with an enduring portrait of Socrates in the hours leading upward to his death.

Table of Contents

  1. The Place of the Phaedo inside Plato's works
  2. Drama and Doctrine
  3. Outline of the Dialogue
    1. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)
    2. Three Arguments for the Soul's Immortality (69e-84b)
      1. The Cyclical Statement (70c-72e)
      2. The Argument from Recollection (72e-78b)
      3. The Analogousness Argument (78b-84b)
    3. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates' Response (84c-107b)
      1. The Objections (85c-88c)
      2. Interlude on Misology (89b-91c)
      3. Response to Simmias (91e-95a)
      4. Response to Cebes (95a-107b)
        1. Socrates' Intellectual History (96a-102a)
        2. The Terminal Statement (102b-107b)
    4. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)
    5. Socrates' Death (115a-118a)
  4. References and Further Reading
    1. Full general Commentaries
    2. The Philosopher and Expiry (59c-69e)
    3. Three Arguments for the Soul's Immortality (69e-84b)
    4. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates' Response (84c-107b)
    5. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)
    6. Socrates' Death (115a-118a)

i. The Place of the Phaedo within Plato's works

Plato wrote approximately thirty dialogues.  The Phaedo is usually placed at the showtime of his "middle" menstruum, which contains his own distinctive views nearly the nature of cognition, reality, and the soul, also as the implications of these views for human upstanding and political life.  Its eye-menstruum classification puts it after "early" dialogues such as the Apology, Euthyphro, Crito, Protagoras, and others which present Socrates' search—usually inconclusive—for ethical definitions, and before "late" dialogues similar the Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman.  Within the center dialogues, information technology is uncontroversial that the Phaedo was written before the Republic, and almost scholars call up it belongs before the Symposium as well.  Thus, in addition to beingness an account of what Socrates said and did on the solar day he died, the Phaedo contains what is probably Plato's first overall argument of his own philosophy.  His most famous theory, the theory of Forms, is presented in four unlike places in the dialogue.

2. Drama and Doctrine

In add-on to its central role in conveying Plato's philosophy, the Phaedo is widely agreed to be a masterpiece of ancient Greek literature. Besides philosophical argumentation, it contains a narrative framing device that resembles the chorus in Greek tragedy, references to the Greek myth of Theseus and the fables of Aesop, Plato'due south own original myth about the afterlife, and in its opening and closing pages, a moving portrait of Socrates in the hours leading upwardly to his expiry.  Plato draws attending (at 59b) to the fact that he himself was non nowadays during the events retold, suggesting that he wants the dialogue to be seen as work of fiction.

Contemporary commentators have struggled to put together the dialogue'southward dramatic components with its lengthy sections of philosophical argumentation—most importantly, with the 4 arguments for the soul'southward immortality, which tend to strike fifty-fifty Plato'southward charitable interpreters as being in need of further defense.  (Socrates himself challenges his listeners to provide such defence force at 84c-d.)  How seriously does Plato have these arguments, and what does the surrounding context contribute to our understanding of them?  While this article will concentrate on the philosophical aspects of the Phaedo, readers are brash to pay close attention to the interwoven dramatic features as well.

3. Outline of the Dialogue

The dialogue revolves around the topic of death and immortality: how the philosopher is supposed to relate to death, and what we can expect to happen to our souls after we die.  The text can be divided, rather unevenly, into five sections:

(one) an initial discussion of the philosopher and decease (59c-69e)

(ii) three arguments for the soul's immortality (69e-84b)

(3) some objections to these arguments from Socrates' interlocutors and his response, which includes a fourth argument (84c-107b)

(four) a myth about the afterlife (107c-115a)

(five) a description of the last moments of Socrates' life (115a-118a)

The dialogue commences with a conversation (57a-59c) betwixt two characters, Echecrates and Phaedo, occurring former after Socrates' death in the Greek city of Phlius.  The one-time asks the latter, who was present on that day, to recount what took place.  Phaedo begins by explaining why some fourth dimension had elapsed between Socrates' trial and his execution: the Athenians had sent their annual religious mission to Delos the mean solar day earlier the trial, and executions are forbidden until the mission returns.  He likewise lists the friends who were present and describes their mood as "an unaccustomed mixture of pleasance and pain," since Socrates appeared happy and without fright merely his friends knew that he was going to die.  He agrees to tell the whole story from the offset; within this story the master interlocutors are Socrates, Simmias, and Cebes.  Some commentators on the dialogue accept taken the latter two characters to be followers of the philosopher Pythagoras (570-490 B.C).

a. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)

Socrates' friends learn that he will die on the present solar day, since the mission from Delos has returned.  They get in to the prison to find Socrates with his wife Xanthippe and their babe, who are then sent away.  Socrates, rubbing the identify on his leg where his but removed bonds had been, remarks on how strange information technology is that a man cannot have both pleasure and hurting at the same time, even so when he pursues and catches 1, he is sure to meet with the other as well.  Cebes asks Socrates nearly the poetry he is said to take begun writing, since Evenus (a Sophist instructor, non nowadays) was wondering about this.  Socrates relates how certain dreams have acquired him to do so, and says that he is shortly putting Aesop'south fables into poesy.  He then asks Cebes to convey to Evenus his farewell, and to tell him that—even though information technology would be wrong to take his own life—he, like any philosopher, should exist prepared to follow Socrates to his expiry.

Here the conversation turns toward an examination of the philosopher's attitude toward expiry.  The discussion starts with the question of suicide.  If philosophers are so willing to die, asks Cebes, why is it wrong for them to kill themselves?  Socrates' initial reply is that the gods are our guardians, and that they volition be angry if one of their possessions kills itself without permission.  As Cebes and Simmias immediately bespeak out, however, this appears to contradict his earlier claim that the philosopher should be willing to die: for what truly wise man would desire to get out the service of the best of all masters, the gods?

In reply to their objection, Socrates offers to "brand a defense" of his view, every bit if he were in court, and submits that he hopes this defense will be more than disarming to them than it was to the jury.  (He is referring here, of class, to his defense at his trial, which is recounted in Plato'south Apology.) The thesis to be supported is a generalized version of his earlier advice to Evenus: that "the one aim of those who do philosophy in the proper style is to exercise for dying and death" (64a3-4).

Socrates begins his defence force of this thesis, which takes upwardly the remainder of the present section, by defining death as the separation of body and soul.  This definition goes unchallenged by his interlocutors, equally does its dualistic assumption that body and soul are two distinct entities.   (The Greek word psuchē is but roughly gauge to our word "soul"; the Greeks thought of psuchē every bit what makes something alive, and Aristotle talks about non-human animals and even plants as having souls in this sense.)  Granted that expiry is a soul/body separation, Socrates sets forth a number of reasons why philosophers are prepared for such an event.  Offset, the truthful philosopher despises actual pleasures such as food, drink, and sex, so he more than than anyone else wants to free himself from his body (64d-65a).  Additionally, since the bodily senses are inaccurate and deceptive, the philosopher'due south search for knowledge is most successful when the soul is "most by itself."

The latter point holds especially for the objects of philosophical knowledge that Plato afterward on in the dialogue (103e) refers to equally "Forms."  Here Forms are mentioned for what is perhaps the first time in Plato's dialogues: the Just itself, the Beautiful, and the Good; Bigness, Wellness, and Strength; and "in a give-and-take, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is" (65d).  They are best approached not past sense perception but by pure thought lonely. These entities are granted again without statement by Simmias and Cebes, and are discussed in more particular later. .

All told, and so, the body is a constant impediment to philosophers in their search for truth: "It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, then that, equally it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind e'er comes to us from the body" (66c).  To have pure knowledge, therefore, philosophers must escape from the influence of the body as much as is possible in this life. Philosophy itself is, in fact, a kind of "training for dying" (67e), a purification of the philosopher's soul from its bodily attachment.

Thus, Socrates concludes, it would exist unreasonable for a philosopher to fright decease, since upon dying he is most likely to obtain the wisdom which he has been seeking his whole life.  Both the philosopher's backbone in the face of decease and his moderation with respect to bodily pleasures which result from the pursuit of wisdom stand in stark contrast to the courage and moderation proficient by ordinary people.  (Wisdom, courage, and moderation are key virtues in Plato's writings, and are included in his definition of justice in the Democracy.) Ordinary people are only dauntless in regard to some things because they fear even worse things happening, and merely moderate in relation to some pleasures considering they desire to exist immoderate with respect to others.  Only this is only "an illusory appearance of virtue"—for as it happens, "moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing or purification" (69b-c).  Since Socrates counts himself among these philosophers, why wouldn't he be prepared to run across decease?  Thus ends his defence force.

b. Three Arguments for the Soul'due south Immortality (69e-84b)

Just what virtually those, says Cebes, who believe that the soul is destroyed when a person dies?  To persuade them that it continues to exist on its own will require some compelling argument.  Readers should note several of import features of Cebes' brief objection (70a-b).  Get-go, he presents the belief in the immortality of the soul as an uncommon belief ("men discover it hard to believe . . .").  Secondly, he identifies two things which need to be demonstrated in order to convince those who are skeptical: (a) that the soul continues to exist afterward a person's expiry, and (b) that it notwithstanding possesses intelligence.  The beginning argument that Socrates deploys appears to exist intended to reply to (a), and the second to (b).

i. The Cyclical Argument (70c-72e)

Socrates mentions an ancient theory holding that just as the souls of the dead in the underworld come from those living in this earth, the living souls come dorsum from those of the expressionless (70c-d).  He uses this theory as the inspiration for his beginning argument, which may be reconstructed equally follows:

1. All things come up to be from their opposite states: for instance, something that comes to exist "larger" must necessarily have been "smaller" before (70e-71a).

2. Between every pair of opposite states there are 2 opposite processes: for case, betwixt the pair "smaller" and "larger" at that place are the processes "increase" and "decrease" (71b).

3. If the ii opposite processes did non residue each other out, everything would eventually be in the same state: for example, if increment did non residue out decrease, everything would keep becoming smaller and smaller (72b).

4.  Since "being alive" and "being dead" are opposite states, and "dying" and "coming-to-life" are the two reverse processes betwixt these states, coming-to-life must residuum out dying (71c-eastward).

5. Therefore, everything that dies must come up back to life once again (72a).

A primary question that arises in regard to this argument is what Socrates means by "opposites." Nosotros tin see at to the lowest degree two unlike ways in which this term is used in reference to the opposed states he mentions.  In a starting time sense, it is used for "comparatives" such as larger and smaller (and besides the pairs weaker/stronger and swifter/slower at 71a), opposites which admit of various degrees and which fifty-fifty may be present in the same object at once (on this latter bespeak, encounter 102b-c).  Nevertheless, Socrates likewise refers to "being alive" and "being dead" as opposites—but this pair is rather unlike from comparative states such every bit larger and smaller, since something can't be deader, but simply dead.  Existence alive and being dead are what logicians call "contraries" (equally opposed to "contradictories," such as "alive" and "not-alive," which exclude any third possibility).  With this terminology in listen, some contemporary commentators have maintained that the argument relies on covertly shifting between these different kinds of opposites.

Clever readers may notice other apparent difficulties as well.  Does the principle nearly residuum in (iii), for example, necessarily apply to living things?  Couldn't all life simply finish to exist at some indicate, without returning?  Moreover, how does Plato account for adding new living souls to the human population?  While these questions are maybe not unanswerable from the point of view of the nowadays statement, nosotros should keep in mind that Socrates has several arguments remaining, and he later on suggests that this offset one should exist seen equally complementing the second (77c-d).

ii. The Statement from Recollection (72e-78b)

Cebes mentions that the soul's immortality also is supported by Socrates' theory that learning is "recollection" (a theory which is, past about accounts, distinctively Ideal, and ane that plays a office in his dialogues Meno and Phaedrus as well).  As show of this theory he mentions instances in which people can "recollect" answers to questions they did non previously announced to possess when this cognition is elicited from them using the proper methods. This is likely a reference to the Meno (82b ff.), where Socrates elicits knowledge about basic geometry from a slave-boy by asking the latter a serial of questions to guide him in the correct direction. Asked by Simmias to elaborate further upon this doctrine, Socrates explains that recollection occurs "when a human being sees or hears or in some other way perceives one thing and non only knows that thing simply also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is non the aforementioned but different . . ." (73c).  For case, when a lover sees his beloved'southward lyre, the epitome of his beloved comes into his mind as well, even though the lyre and the beloved are two distinct things.

Based on this theory, Socrates now commences a second proof for the soul'southward immortality—i which is referred to with approving in later on passages in the dialogue (77a-b, 87a, 91e-92a, and 92d-e). The argument may be reconstructed equally follows:

1. Things in the globe which announced to be equal in measurement are in fact deficient in the equality they possess (74b, d-e).

2. Therefore, they are not the same every bit true equality, that is, "the Equal itself" (74c).

3. When nosotros see the deficiency of the examples of equality, it helps u.s.a. to think of, or "recollect," the Equal itself (74c-d).

four. In order to practise this, nosotros must have had some prior cognition of the Equal itself (74d-e).

5. Since this knowledge does not come from sense-perception, nosotros must have acquired it before we acquired sense-perception, that is, before we were built-in (75b ff.).

6. Therefore, our souls must have existed before we were born. (76d-e)

With regard to premise (ane), in what respect are this-worldly instances of equality deficient?  Socrates mentions that ii plainly equal sticks, for example, "fall brusque" of true equality and are thus "junior" to it (74e).  Why?  His reasoning at 74b8-9—that the sticks "sometimes, while remaining the aforementioned, appear to i to be equal and another to be unequal"—is notoriously cryptic, and has been the subject of much scrutiny.  He could mean that the sticks may appear as equal or unequal to dissimilar observers, or perhaps they appear as equal when measured confronting one matter but not another.  In whatever instance, the notion that the sensible globe is imperfect is a standard view of the centre dialogues (meet Republic 479b-c for a similar instance), and  is emphasized further in his next argument.

By "true equality" and "the Equal itself" in premises (2)-(4), Socrates is referring to the Course of Equality.  It is this entity with respect to which the sensible instances of equality autumn short—and indeed, Socrates says that the Grade is "something else beyond all these."  His brief argument at 74a-c that truthful equality is something altogether singled-out from whatever visible instances of equality is of considerable involvement, since information technology is one of few places in the center dialogues where he makes an explicit argument for why there must be Forms. The conclusion of the second argument for the soul'south immortality extends what has been said about equality to other Forms also: "If those realities nosotros are always talking nigh exist, the Cute and the Good and all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering that information technology existed before and is ours, and we compare these things with information technology, then, only as they exist, so our soul must exist before we are built-in" (76d-e).  The process of recollection is initiated not just when nosotros see imperfectly equal things, and so, simply when we see things that appear to be beautiful or expert as well; experience of all such things inspires us to recollect the relevant Forms.  Moreover, if these Forms are never bachelor to united states of america in our sensory feel, we must have learned them even before we were capable of having such feel.

Simmias agrees with the argument so far, but says that this yet does non prove that our souls exist after death, simply only earlier nascence.  This difficulty, Socrates suggests, tin be resolved past combining the present argument with the ane from opposites: the soul comes to life from out of expiry, and then it cannot avoid existing after expiry equally well.  He does not elaborate on this suggestion, however, and instead proceeds to offering a third argument.

iii. The Affinity Argument (78b-84b)

The third argument for the soul's immortality is referred to by commentators every bit the "affinity statement," since information technology turns on the idea that the soul has a likeness to a higher level of reality:

i. At that place are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that nosotros perceive with our senses, which is homo, mortal, composite, unintelligible, and always changing, and (b) the invisible world of Forms that we can access solely with our minds, which is divine, deathless, intelligible, non-blended, and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).

2. The soul is more than like world (b), whereas the body is more like globe (a) (79b-e).

3. Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily influence through philosophical training, the soul is almost probable to make its way to earth (b) when the torso dies (80d-81a).  (If, however, the soul is polluted past bodily influence, it likely will stay bound to world (a) upon death (81b-82b).)

Notation that this statement is intended to establish only the probability of the soul'south continued existence later the death of the body—"what kind of affair," Socrates asks at the outset, "is likely to exist scattered [after the decease of the body]?" (78b; my italics)  Further, premise (2) appears to rest on an analogy betwixt the soul and body and the ii kinds of realities mentioned in (ane), a style of argument that Simmias will criticize later (85e ff.).  Indeed, since Plato himself appends several pages of objections past Socrates' interlocutors to this statement, one might wonder how authoritative he takes it to be.

Yet Socrates' reasoning about the soul at 78c-79a states an important feature of Plato's middle catamenia metaphysics, sometimes referred to as his "two-world theory."  In this flick of reality, the world perceived past the senses is ready against the world of Forms, with each world being populated by fundamentally different kinds of entities:

The World of the Senses The World of Forms
Composites (that is, things with parts) Non-composites
Things that never remain the same from ane moment to the next Things that always remain the same and don't tolerate whatever change
Any particular thing that is equal, cute, and then forth The Equal, the Beautiful, and what each thing is in itself
That which is visible That which is grasped by the mind and invisible

Since the trunk is like 1 earth and the soul like the other, information technology would be strange to call back that fifty-fifty though the body lasts for some time afterwards a person'due south expiry, the soul immediately dissolves and exists no further.  Given the respective affinities of the body and soul, Socrates spends the remainder of the statement (roughly 80d-84b) expanding on the earlier point (from his "defense") that philosophers should focus on the latter. This section has some similarities to the myth most the afterlife, which he narrates near the dialogue's finish; note that some of the details of the account here of what happens afterwards death are characterized as simply "likely." A soul which is purified of bodily things, Socrates says, will brand its mode to the divine when the body dies, whereas an impure soul retains its share in the visible after death, becoming a wandering phantom.  Of the impure souls, those who have been immoderate will later get donkeys or similar animals, the unjust will go wolves or hawks, those with only ordinary non-philosophical virtue will get social creatures such as bees or ants.

The philosopher, on the other hand, will join the company of the gods.  For philosophy brings deliverance from bodily imprisonment, persuading the soul "to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing past itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true any it examines by other means, for this is different in dissimilar circumstances and is sensible and visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and indivisible" (83a6-b4).  The philosopher thus avoids the "greatest and most extreme evil" that comes from the senses: that of violent pleasures and pains which deceive one into thinking that what causes them is genuine.  Hence, after death, his soul will join with that to which it is akin, namely, the divine.

c. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates' Response (84c-107b)

After a long silence, Socrates tells Simmias and Cebes not to worry about objecting to any of what he has just said.  For he, like the swan that sings beautifully before it dies, is dedicated to the service of Apollo, and thus filled with a souvenir of prophecy that makes him hopeful for what death will bring.

i. The Objections (85c-88c)

Simmias prefaces his objection by making a remark about methodology.  While certainty, he says, is either impossible or difficult,  it would show a weak spirit not to make a complete investigation.  If at the end of this investigation one fails to notice the truth, ane should adopt the best theory and cling to it like a raft, either until i dies or comes upon something sturdier.

This existence said, he proceeds to challenge Socrates' third argument.  For one might put forth a similar argument which claims that the soul is like a harmony and the body is like a lyre and its strings.  In fact, Simmias claims that "we really do suppose the soul to be something of this kind," that is, a harmony or proper mixture of bodily elements like the hot and cold or dry out and moist (86b-c).  (Some commentators think  the "we" here refers to followers of Pythagoras.)  But even though a musical harmony is invisible and alike to the divine, it will cease to be when the lyre is destroyed.  Following the soul-equally-harmony thesis, the same would be true of the soul when the body dies.

Next Socrates asks if Cebes has any objections.  The latter says that he is convinced by Socrates' argument that the soul exists before nativity, simply nonetheless doubts whether information technology continues to exist after decease.   In support of his doubt, he invokes a metaphor of his ain.  Suppose someone were to say that since a man lasts longer than his cloak, information technology follows that if the cloak is even so at that place the man must exist at that place too.  We would certainly think this statement was nonsense. (He appears to exist refering to Socrates' argument at 80c-e here.)  Just as a human might habiliment out many cloaks before he dies, the soul might employ upwards many bodies before it dies.  So even supposing everything else is granted, if "one does not further agree that the soul is not damaged by its many births and is non, in the end, altogether destroyed in one of those deaths, he might say that no ane knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the devastation of the soul, since not one of u.s.a. tin be aware of this" (88a-b).  In light of this doubt, one should always face up death with fear.

two. Interlude on Misology (89b-91c)

Later a short exchange in the meta-dialogue in which Phaedo and Echecrates praise Socrates' pleasant attitude throughout this discussion, Socrates begins his response with a warning that they non become misologues.  Misology, he says, arises in much the same manner that misanthropy does: when someone with little feel puts his trust in another person, merely later finds him to exist unreliable, his first reaction is to blame this on the depraved nature of people in general.  If he had more knowledge and experience, however, he would not be and then quick to brand this bound, for he would realize that most people fall somewhere in betwixt the extremes of expert and bad, and he only happened to encounter someone at one end of the spectrum.  A similar caution applies to arguments.  If someone thinks a particular statement is sound, just later finds out that it is non, his first inclination will be to recall that all arguments are unsound; withal instead of blaming arguments in general and coming to hate reasonable word, nosotros should blame our own lack of skill and feel.

iii. Response to Simmias (91e-95a)

Socrates then puts forth three counter-arguments to Simmias' objection.  To begin, he gets both Simmias and Cebes to hold that the theory of recollection is true.  Just if this is so, then Simmias is non able to "harmonize" his view that the soul is a harmony dependent on the body with the recollection view that the soul exists earlier birth.  Simmias admits this inconsistency, and says that he in fact prefers the theory of recollection to the other view.  However, Socrates proceeds to make two additional points.  First, if the soul is a harmony, he contends, it tin can have no share in the disharmony of wickedness.  But this implies that all souls are equally practiced.  2nd, if the soul is never out of tune with its component parts (as shown at 93a), then it seems like it could never oppose these parts.  But in fact it does the opposite, "ruling over all the elements of which ane says information technology is equanimous, opposing nearly all of them throughout life, directing all their ways, inflicting harsh and painful penalisation on them, . . . holding converse with desires and passions and fears, as if it were one thing talking to a unlike ane . . ." (94c9-d5).  A passage in Homer, wherein Odysseus beats his breast and orders his heart to endure, strengthens this picture show of the opposition betwixt soul and bodily emotions.  Given these counter-arguments, Simmias agrees that the soul-as-harmony thesis cannot exist correct.

iv. Response to Cebes (95a-107b)

1. Socrates' Intellectual History (96a-102a)

Later summarizing Cebes' objection that the soul may outlast the trunk notwithstanding not exist immortal, Socrates says that this problem requires "a thorough investigation of the crusade of generation and destruction" (96a; the Greek word aitia, translated as "cause," has the more general meaning of "explanation").  He now proceeds to relate his own examinations into this subject, recalling in plough his youthful puzzlement about the topic, his initial allure to a solution given by the philosopher Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.), and finally his development of his own method of explanation involving Forms.  Information technology is debated whether this account is meant to describe Socrates' intellectual autobiography or Plato's ain, since the theory of Forms more often than not is described as the latter's distinctive contribution.  (Some commentators have suggested that it may exist neither, but instead only good storytelling on Plato's part.)

When Socrates was young, he says, he was excited past natural science, and wanted to know the explanation of everything from how living things are nourished to how things occur in the heavens and on globe.  But then he realized that he had no power for such investigations, since they caused him to unlearn many of the things he thought he had previously known.   He used to remember, for case, that people grew larger by various kinds of external nourishment combining with the appropriate parts of our bodies, for example, by nutrient adding flesh to flesh.  But what is it which makes i person larger than another?   Or for that matter, which makes one and one add together up to two?  It seems like it can't be but the two things coming virtually ane another.   Considering of puzzles like these, Socrates is at present forced to admit his ignorance: "I do non any longer persuade myself that I know why a unit or anything else comes to be, or perishes or exists by the old method of investigation, and I practise not have information technology, simply I have a confused method of my own" (97b).

This method came virtually as follows.  Ane day subsequently his initial setbacks Socrates happened to hear of Anaxagoras' view that Heed directs and causes all things.  He took this to mean that everything was arranged for the all-time.  Therefore, if i wanted to know the explanation of something, one merely had to know what was best for that thing.  Suppose, for instance, that Socrates wanted to know why the heavenly bodies move the mode they exercise.  Anaxagoras would show him how this was the best possible fashion for each of them to be.  And in one case he had taught Socrates what the best was for each matter individually, he then would explain the overall expert that they all share in common.  Yet upon studying Anaxagoras further, Socrates plant these expectations disappointed.  It turned out that Anaxagoras did not talk about Mind equally cause at all, merely rather about air and ether and other mechanistic explanations.  For Socrates, withal, this sort of explanation was simply unacceptable:

To call those things causes is too absurd.  If someone said that without bones and sinews and all such things, I should not exist able to do what I decided, he would be right, simply surely to say that they are the cause of what I do, and not that I have called the best class, even though I act with my mind, is to speak very lazily and carelessly.  Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause from that without which the cause would not be able to act as a cause. (99a-b)

Frustrated at finding a teacher who would provide a teleological explanation of these phenomena, Socrates settled for what he refers to equally his "second voyage" (99d).  This new method consists in taking what seems to him to exist the nearly convincing theory—the theory of Forms—as his basic hypothesis, and judging everything else in accordance with it.  In other words, he assumes the existence of the Beautiful, the Good, and and so on, and employs them equally explanations for all the other things.  If something is beautiful, for case, the "safe answer" he now offers for what makes it such is "the presence of," or "sharing in," the Cute (100d).  Socrates does not go into whatever detail here about the human relationship between the Form and object that shares in it, but but claims that "all beautiful things are beautiful by the Cute" (100d).  In regard to the phenomena that puzzled him as a swain, he offers the same respond.  What makes a big thing big, or a bigger affair bigger, is the Grade Enormousness.  Similarly, if 1 and one are said to exist ii, it is considering they share in Twoness, whereas previously each shared in Oneness.

2. The Final Argument (102b-107b)

When Socrates has finished describing this method, both Simmias and Cebes concur that what he has said is truthful.  Their accord with his view is echoed in another cursory interlude by Echecrates and Phaedo, in which the former says that Socrates has "made these things wonderfully clear to anyone of fifty-fifty the smallest intelligence," and Phaedo adds that all those present agreed with Socrates as well.  Returning once more to the prison house scene, Socrates at present uses this as the basis of a fourth argument that the soul is immortal.  Ane may reconstruct this statement as follows:

1. Nothing can become its opposite while still being itself: information technology either flees abroad or is destroyed at the arroyo of its opposite.  (For example, "tallness" cannot become "shortness" while still being "alpine.") (102d-103a)

2. This is true not only of opposites, but in a similar way of things that contain opposites.  (For instance, "fire" and "snowfall" are non themselves opposites, but "burn" e'er brings "hot" with it, and "snow" always brings "cold" with it.  And then "burn down" will not become "cold" without ceasing to be "fire," nor volition "snow" become "hot" without ceasing to be "snow.") (103c-105b)

3. The "soul" always brings "life" with it. (105c-d)

four. Therefore "soul" will never admit the opposite of "life," that is, "expiry," without ceasing to exist "soul." (105d-e)

5. Merely what does not admit death is also indestructible. (105e-106d)

half dozen. Therefore, the soul is indestructible. (106e-107a)

When someone objects that premise (1) contradicts his earlier statement (at 70d-71a) about opposites arising from ane another, Socrates responds that then he was speaking of things with opposite properties, whereas here is talking nigh the opposites themselves.  Careful readers will distinguish 3 dissimilar ontological items at outcome in this passage:

(a) the thing (for example, Simmias) that participates in a Grade (for example, that of Tallness), but can come up to participate in the reverse Form (of Shortness) without thereby changing that which it is (namely, Simmias)

(b) the Form (for example, of Tallness), which cannot acknowledge its opposite (Shortness)

(c) the Form-in-the-thing (for example, the tallness in Simmias), which cannot admit its opposite (shortness) without fleeing away of being destroyed

Premise (2) introduces another detail:

(d) a kind of entity (for example, fire) that, even though it does non share the same name as a Form, always participates in that Form (for example, Hotness), and therefore always excludes the opposite Form (Coldness) wherever information technology (fire) exists

This new kind of entity puts Socrates across the "safe reply" given earlier (at 100d) nearly how a thing participates in a Form.  His new, "more than sophisticated answer" is to say that what makes a body hot is non oestrus—the safe answer—but rather an entity such every bit fire.  In similar manner, what makes a body sick is not sickness but fever, and what makes a number odd is not oddness only oneness (105b-c).  Premise (three) and so states that the soul is this sort of entity with respect to the Course of Life.  And just as fire ever brings the Class of Hotness and excludes that of Coldness, the soul will always bring the Form of Life with information technology and exclude its opposite.

Withal, i might wonder almost premise (five).  Even though fire, to return to Socrates' example, does not acknowledge Coldness, it even so may exist destroyed in the presence of something cold—indeed, this was ane of the alternatives mentioned in premise (1).  Similarly, might not the soul, while non albeit death, nonetheless be destroyed by its presence?  Socrates tries to block this possibility by highly-seasoned to what he takes to be a widely shared assumption, namely, that what is deathless is also indestructible: "All would agree . . . that the god, and the Form of Life itself, and annihilation that is deathless, are never destroyed" (107d).  For readers who exercise non concord that such items are deathless in the showtime place, still, this sort of appeal is unlikely to exist acceptable.

Simmias, for his part, says he agrees with Socrates' line of reasoning, although he admits that he may have misgivings about it subsequently.  Socrates says that this is only because their hypotheses demand clearer examination—simply upon examination they will be found convincing.

d. The Myth most the Afterlife (107c-115a)

The issue of the immortality of the soul, Socrates says, has considerable implications for morality.  If the soul is immortal, then nosotros must worry about our souls not simply in this life merely for all time; if it is not, then there are no lasting consequences for those who are wicked.  But in fact, the soul is immortal, as the previous arguments take shown, and Socrates now begins to depict what happens when it journeys to the underworld after the expiry of the body.  The ensuing tale tells united states of

(1) the judgment of the expressionless souls and their subsequent journey to the underworld (107d-108c)

(2) the shape of the earth and its regions (108c-113c)

(iii) the punishment of the wicked and the advantage of the pious philosophers (113d-114c)

Commentators commonly refer to this story as a "myth," and Socrates himself describes it this style (using the Greek give-and-take muthos at 110b, which earlier on in the dialogue (61b) he has contrasted with logos, or "argument.").  Readers should be aware that for the Greeks myth did not accept the negative connotations it ofttimes carries today, every bit when we say, for instance, that something is "just a myth" or when we distinguish myth from fact.  While Plato's relation to traditional Greek mythology is a complex one—come across his critique of Homer and Hesiod in Republic Book II, for case—he himself uses myths to eternalize his doctrines not merely in the Phaedo, but in dialogues such as the Gorgias, Republic, and Phaedrus every bit well.

At the end of his tale, Socrates says that what is of import about his story is non its literal details, just rather that we "chance the belief" that "this, or something similar this, is true almost our souls and their abode places," and repeat such a tale to ourselves as though it were an "incantation" (114d).  Doing so will go on us in good spirits equally we work to ameliorate our souls in this life.  The myth thus reinforces the dialogue'due south recommendation of the practise of philosophy as care for ane'southward soul.

eastward. Socrates' Death (115a-118a)

The depiction of Socrates' death that closes the Phaedo is rich in dramatic particular.  It as well is complicated by a couple of difficult interpretative questions.

Later on Socrates has finished his tale about the afterlife, he says that information technology is time for him to set up to take the hemlock poisonous substance required past his death sentence.  When Crito asks him what his last instructions are for his burying, Socrates reminds him that what will remain with them after decease is not Socrates himself, just rather just his trunk, and tells him that they tin bury it nonetheless they want.  Next he takes a bath—so that his corpse will non have to exist cleaned mail service-mortem—and says farewell to his wife and three sons.  Even the officer sent to carry out Socrates' penalization is moved to tears at this bespeak, and describes Socrates every bit "the noblest, the gentlest and the best man" who has e'er been at the prison.

Crito tells Socrates that some condemned men put off taking the toxicant for as long as possible, in order to enjoy their terminal moments in feasting or sexual activity.  Socrates, however, asks for the poisonous substance to exist brought immediately.  He drinks it calmly and in skilful cheer, and chastises his friends for their weeping.  When his legs begin to feel heavy, he lies down; the numbness in his body travels up until eventually it reaches his center.

Some gimmicky scholars have challenged Plato's description of hemlock-poisoning, arguing that in fact the symptoms would have been much more than trigger-happy than the relatively gentle death he depicts.  If these scholars are correct, why does Plato draw the death scene the manner he does?  At that place is besides a dispute nearly Socrates' last words, which invoke a sacrificial offering made past the sick to the god of medicine: "Crito, nosotros owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and practise not forget."  Did Socrates view life as a kind of sickness?

4. References and Further Reading

a. Full general Commentaries

  • Bostock, D.Plato's Phaedo. Oxford, 1986.
    • In-depth still accessible discussion of the dialogue's arguments (does not include text of thePhaedo).  Includes a helpful affiliate on the theory of Forms.
  • Dorter, K.Plato'southward Phaedo: An Estimation. University of Toronto Printing, 1982.
    • Reading of the dialogue that combines both dramatic and doctrinal approaches (does non include text of thePhaedo).
  • Gallop, D.Plato: Phaedo. Oxford, 1975.
    • English language translation with divide commentary that focuses on the dialogue's argumentation.
  • Hackforth, R.Plato's Phaedo: Translated with an Introduction and Commentary. Cambridge, 1955.
    • English translation with running commentary.
  • Rowe, C.J.Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge, 1993.
    • Original Greek text (no English) with introduction and detailed textual commentary.

b. The Philosopher and Death (59c-69e)

  • Pakaluk, M. "Degrees of Separation in the 'Phaedo.'"Phronesis 48 (2003) 89-115.
    • Discusses Plato'southward notion of the soul-body distinction at 63a-69e.
  • Warren, J. "Socratic Suicide."The Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001) 91-106.
    • On the Platonic philosopher'south attitude toward suicide in the 61e-69e passage.
  • Weiss, R. "The Right Exchange:Phaedo 69a6-c3″.Aboriginal Philosophy 7 (1987) 57-66.
    • Examines the notion that wisdom is the highest goal of the philosopher.

c. Three Arguments for the Soul'southward Immortality (69e-84b)

  • Ackrill, J.Fifty. "Anamnēsis in thePhaedo," in Eastward.North. Lee and A.P.D. Mourelatos (eds.)Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos. Assen, 1973. 177-95.
    • On the theory of recollection (73c-75).
  • Apolloni, D. "Plato's Affinity Statement for the Immortality of the Soul."Journal of the History of Philosophy 34 (1996) 5-32.
    • A study of the argument at 78b-80d.
  • Gallop, D. "Plato's 'Cyclical Argument' Recycled."Phronesis 27 (1982) 207-222.
    • On the get-go argument for the soul'due south immortality (69e-72e) and its relation to the other arguments.
  • Matthen, M.  "Forms and Participants in Plato'sPhaedo."Noûs eighteen:ii (1984) 281-297.
    • Discusses Plato'south argument apropos equals at 74b7-c6.
  • Nehamas, A. "Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible Earth," in G. Fine, ed.,Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford, 1999. 171-191.
    • On Plato'southward view of sensible particulars, especially at 72e-78b.

d. Objections from Simmias and Cebes, and Socrates' Response (84c-107b)

  • Frede, D.  "The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato'sPhaedo 102a-107a."Phronesis 23 (1978) 27-41.
    • A defense of Plato'south argument and examination of its underlying assumptions regarding the soul.
  • Gottschalk, H.D. "Soul every bit Harmonia."Phronesis xvi (1971) 179-198.
    • Discusses Simmias' business relationship of the soul starting time at 85e.
  • Vlastos, Yard. "Reasons and Causes in thePhaedo," inPlato: A Collection of Critical Essays, Vol. I: Metaphysics and Epistemology.  Garden City, NY: Ballast Books, 1971.
    • Are Forms causes? An examination of 95e-105c.
  • Wiggins, D. "Teleology and the Proficient in Plato'southwardPhaedo."Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy iv (1986) i-18.
    • On Socrates' "second voyage" first at 99c2-d1.

e. The Myth about the Afterlife (107c-115a)

  • Annas, J. "Plato's Myths of Judgment."Phronesis 27 (1982) 119-43.
    • A study of Plato's myths in theGorgias,Phaedo, andRepublic.
  • Morgan, K.A.Myth and Philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Plato. Cambridge, 2000.
    • Includes all-encompassing background on myth in Plato, as well as discussion of thePhaedo myth in particular.
  • Sedley, D. "Teleology and Myth in thePhaedo."Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 5 (1990) 359–83.

f. Socrates' Death (115a-118a)

  • Crook, J. "Socrates' Final Words: Another Wait at an Ancient Riddle."Classical Quarterly 48 (1998) 117-125.
    • The papers by Cheat and Most (cited beneath) consider some puzzles regarding Socrates' concluding words at the dialogue's end.
  • Gill, C. "The Death of Socrates."Classical Quarterly 23 (1973) 25-25.
    • On the effectively details of hemlock-poisoning.
  • Most, G.Westward. "A Cock for Asclepius."Classical Quarterly 43 (1993) 96-111.
  • Stewart, D. "Socrates' Last Bath."Journal of the History of Philosophy 10 (1972) 253-9.
    • Looks at the deeper meaning of Socrates' bath at 116a.
  • Wilson, Eastward.The Death of Socrates. Harvard University Printing, 2007.
    • Includes word of the expiry scene in thePhaedo, every bit well as its subsequent reception in Western philosophy, art, and civilisation.

Writer Information

Tim Connolly
Email: tconnolly@po-box.esu.edu
E Stroudsburg Academy
U. S. A.