Even though Phaedo is set narratively the day after Crito -- that is, on the day of Socrates' poisoning -- it is clearly a major stylistic leap from one dialog to the next. Phaedo is way longer, much more complex, and contains a whole positive philosophical theory of the soul. The editor of the collection I'm reading is at pains to say that the grouping of Plato's works into an early, middle, and late period is fairly speculative history, but really it's pretty obvious that this is a more mature work. According to this grouping, despite its depiction of the end of Socrates' life, Phaedo comes from the middle period of Plato's writings. Apparently, almost all the dialogs of this period focus on Plato's famous theory of the Forms, and here, we find the theory applied to the question of death. The basic idea is that the Soul is analogous to the Form of Beauty of Justice or the Good. Hence it is part of an indestructible essential reality that only comes to occupy the body, and upon death it decamps for fairer realms.
Phaedo is philosophically and literarily complex, and I should say at the outset that I'm not sure I'll be able to completely do it justice yet. Scrambling the order of the Cooper edition (which it inherits from the 100 A.D. collection made by Alexandrian philosopher Thrasyllus), I think I will continue by first reading through all the 'Socratic' or early dialogues before I tackle another of the major middle or late period works. Whether this is reading them in strictly chronological order is an open question, but I think it may give me more context on some of the stylistic devices that I can already see the later dialogs layer on to the earlier ones. Nevertheless, I just read Phaedo, so let's dig in and do the best we can to unravel it.
The dialog is a moving portrait of a man who dies doing what he loves. Socrates said in his Apology that he would rather die than give up philosophizing, and in fact he spends the hours leading up to his death conversing with his friends about the nature of the soul, continuing his vocation right up to the end. Which leads us directly to the first puzzling piece of Plato's account of his end -- after his conviction, Socrates suddenly dreams that he should start writing poetry!
The dreams were something like this: the same dream often came to me in the past, now in one shape now in another, but saying the same thing: "Socrates," it said, "practice and cultivate the arts." In the past I imagined that it was instructing and advising me to do what I was doing, such as those who encourage runners in a race, that the dream was thus bidding me do the very thing I was doing, namely, to practice the art of philosophy, this being the highest kind of art, and I was doing that.
But now, after my trial took place, and the festival of the god was preventing my execution, I thought that, in case my dream was bidding me to practice this popular art, I should not disobey it but compose poetry. I thought it safer not to leave here until I had satisfied my conscience by writing poems in obedience to the dream.
This is very strange. I remember from the Republic that poetry is a big Platonic no-no. Also, here is yet another example of the paragon of rationality hearing little voices that tell him to do stuff. What idea is this passage directing us to then? Perhaps that Socrates was unsure of everything even up to the end? Is this supposed to reinforce the irony of a man who is sentenced to death because of the unshakeable courage of his conviction that he knows nothing? I don't know, but there are a couple of other odd moments in the story that might serve this same goal.
The key drama in the dialog is obviously that the guy calmly discussing what happens after we die is himself about to die. So when the question of the immortality of the soul is raised, Socrates could be subject to some motivated reasoning, to say the least. In his public Apology, he claimed that it was pure ignorance to fear death, because no one could know whether it was good or bad or what it was like. But now that he's speaking amongst friends, he will argue that the soul must be immortal, and that death is the philosophical moment par excellence because it is when the soul is liberated from the constraints of the body and free to focus exclusively on the contemplation of those things which go beyond the senses -- the Forms. For a man who only knows he knows nothing, who famously follows the argument wherever it might lead, and for whom literally everything is open to discussion, this creates a real problem. What if Socrates concludes that he's wrong, and, on the day of his death, becomes convinced that the soul doesn't exist or is destroyed along with the body?
And how would you like to be the friend that convinces him of this? There are several references in the dialog to his friends' squeamishness on this point. Socrates always laughs off their delicacy and encourages them to ask the hard questions despite knowing what is at stake. The most beautiful example of this is his reference to the literal swan song of this, his final conversation.
When Socrates finished speaking there was a long silence. He appeared to be concentrating on what had been said, and so were most of us. But Cebes and Simmias were whispering to each other. Socrates observed them and questioned them. Come, he said, do you think there is something lacking in my argument? There are still many doubtful points and many objections for anyone who wants a thorough discussion of these matters. If you are discussing some other subject, I have nothing to say, but if you have some difficulty about this one, do not hesitate to speak for yourselves and expound it if you think the argument could be improved, and if you think you will do better, take me along with you in the discussion.
I will tell you the truth, Socrates, said Simmias. Both of us have been in difficulty for some time, and each of us has been urging the other to question you because we wanted to hear what you would say, but we hesitated to bother you, lest it be displeasing to you in your present mis-fortune.
When Socrates heard this he laughed quietly and said: "Really, Simmias, it would be hard for me to persuade other people that I do not consider my present fate a misfortune if I cannot persuade even you, and you are afraid that it is more difficult to deal with me than before. You seem to think me inferior to the swans in prophecy. They sing before too, but when they realize that they must die they sing most and most beautifully, as they rejoice that they are about to depart to join the god whose servants they are. But men, because of their own fear of death, tell lies about the swans and say that they lament their death and sing in sorrow. They do not reflect that no bird sings when it is hungry or cold or suffers in any other way, neither the nightingale nor the swallow nor the hoopoe, though they do say that these sing laments when in pain. Nor do the swans, but I believe that as they belong to Apollo, they are prophetic, have knowledge of the future and sing of the blessings of the underworld, sing and rejoice on that day beyond what they did before. As I believe myself to be a fellow servant with the swans and dedicated to the same god, and have received from my master a gift of prophecy not inferior to theirs, I am no more despondent than they on leaving life. Therefore, you must speak and ask whatever you want as long as the authorities allow it."
But is Socrates really so certain of himself that he rejoices in death? We've already seen how he's writing poetry because he wonders at the last minute if maybe that's what his dreams were all about? And in this passage he seems to be saying that he'd rather delude himself about the immortality of the soul than find a convincing argument against it just now, because he would then worry his friends with his sadness about dying.
This then is the first thing we should guard against, he said. We should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness, you and the others for the sake of your whole life still to come, and I for the sake of death itself. I am in danger at this moment of not having a philosophical attitude about this, but like those who are quite uneducated, I am eager to get the better of you in argument, for the uneducated, when they engage in argument about anything, give no thought to the truth about the subject of discussion but are only eager that those present will accept the position they have set forth. I differ from them only to this extent: I shall not be eager to get the agreement of those present that what I say is true, except incidentally, but I shall be very eager that I should myself be thoroughly convinced that things are so. For I am thinking — see in how contentious a spirit — that if what I say is true, it is a fine thing to be convinced; if, on the other hand, nothing exists after death, at least for this time before I die I shall distress those present less with lamentations, and my folly will not continue to exist along with me—that would be a bad thing—but will come to an end in a short time. Thus prepared, Simmias and Cebes, he said, I come to deal with your argument. If you will take my advice, you will give but little thought to Socrates but much more to the truth. If you think that what I say is true, agree with me; if not, oppose it with every argument and take care that in my eagerness I do not deceive myself and you and, like a bee, leave my sting in you when I go.
So while Socrates makes a forceful argument that the soul is immortal, the structure of the dialog appears to undermine the certainty of this conclusion, and relegate it to the role of mere hypothesis. This reading culminates in the extraordinary myth that Socrates relates from 107c to 114d. Socrates spends the whole dialog arguing for the immortality of the soul. After meeting many objections, he manages to convince all his companies that death is nothing to fear, and indeed, will even supply the complete knowledge of the Forms we can only approach in life. We'll look at the argument in detail in the next post. From a literary perspective though, what's most interesting is the strange climax. After triumphing by rational means, Socrates goes on to tell an elaborate fiction about what happens to our souls after they depart our bodies and head into the underworld. We're talking Dantesque levels of elaborate here. He describes the structure of the underworld and the earth's relation to it, how it is surrounded by rivers and the dead souls gather at a lake to be judged, some to be reborn, some to pass on to ethereal realms of beauty, and some to be cast forever into the pit of Tartarus. After the careful argumentation of the dialog, the story comes off as completely delirious. And then it ends with Socrates disavowing the whole works.
No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale. That is the reason why a man should be of good cheer about his own soul, if during life he has ignored the pleasures of the body and its ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him more harm than good, but has seriously concerned himself with the pleasures of learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth, and in that state awaits his journey to the underworld.
Even though Socrates takes it as more or less established that the soul is immortal (as established as things can be by argument) he still needs to spend his last breath telling himself this fable as if it were an incantation in order to go stoically to his death. Perhaps this is some of the poetry he has been writing? It's a strange and paradoxical move where reason joins forces with religion, and certainty and doubt come side by side. It seems anything but obvious what exactly Plato wanted to convey with this structure. It doesn't seem meant to undermine the evident courage Socrates shows in calmly facing death. Nor does it really seem to suggest that this courage is just a blind faith with nothing rational about it. Maybe the intent is just to show us a man who was willing to take the a risk right up to the end, the risk every seeker of truth takes that they are believing in a fairy tale.
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