edo

Plato’s
Pha
Bahod | Osio

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 n d o f t he Au thor
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See also Neopla

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 The Phaedo
one of the most widely read
dialogues written by the ancient
Greek philosopher Plato
claims to recount the events and
conversations that occurred
when Socrates was put to death
It is the final episode in the
series of dialogues recounting
Socrates’ trial and death
describes the moments in the
prison cell leading up to
Socrates’ death from poisoning
by use of hemlock

after 3rd bullet: It is the final episode in the series of dialogues recounting Socrates’ trial
and death. The earlier Euthyphro dialogue portrayed Socrates in discussion outside the
court where he was to be prosecuted on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth; the
Apology described his defense before the Athenian jury; and the Crito described a
conversation during his subsequent imprisonment. The Phaedo now brings things to a
close (read 4th bullet directly)

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 The Phaedo
It is unique in that it presents Plato’s
own metaphysical, psychological,
and epistemological views
Known to ancient commentators by
the title On the Soul
Plato sets forth his most distinctive
philosophical theory—the theory of
Forms
the Phaedo merges Plato’s own
philosophical worldview with an
enduring portrait of Socrates in the
hours leading up to his death.

before 1st bullet: Among these “trial and death” dialogues.

after 1st bullet: thus it belongs to Plato’s middle period rather than with his earlier works
detailing Socrates’ conversations regarding ethics.

after 2nd bullet: the dialogue presents no less than four arguments for the soul’s
immortality. It also contains discussions of Plato’s doctrine of knowledge as recollection,
his account of the soul’s relationship to the body, and his views about causality and
scientific explanation.

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 The Place of the Phaedo
within Plato’s works
Plato wrote approximately thirty dialogues
Phaedo is usually placed at the beginning of his
“middle” period
the Phaedo contains what is probably Plato’s first
overall statement of his own philosophy

after 1st bullet: examples of which are Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Cratylus, Theaetetus,
and Phaedo

after 2nd bullet: which contains his own distinctive views about the nature of knowledge,
reality, and the soul, as well as the implications of these views for human ethical and
political life. Its middle-period 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 like the Parmenides,
Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman.

after 3rd bullet: Thus, in addition to being an account of what Socrates said and did on the
day he died. he also introduced His most famous theory, the theory of Forms, is presented
in four different places in the dialogue.

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 Drama and Doctrine
It 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
Contemporary commentators have struggled to
put together the dialogue’s dramatic components

after 1st bullet:

after 2nd bullet: it has references to the Greek myth of Theseus and the fables of Aesop,
Plato’s own original myth about the afterlife, and in its opening and closing pages, a
moving portrait of Socrates in the hours leading up to his death. Plato draws attention to
the fact that he himself was not present during the events retold, suggesting that he wants
the dialogue to be seen as work of fiction.

after 3rd bullet: due to its lengthy sections of philosophical argumentation—most

importantly, with the four arguments for the soul’s immortality, which tend to strike even
Plato’s charitable interpreters as being in need of further defense

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 Outline of the Dialogue
dialogue revolves around the topic of death and
immortality
The text can be divided, rather unevenly, into five sections:
1. an initial discussion of the philosopher and death
2. three arguments for the soul’s immortality
3. some objections to these arguments from Socrates’
interlocutors and his response, which includes a fourth
argument
4. a myth about the afterlife
5. a description of the final moments of Socrates’ life

after 1st bullet: how the philosopher is supposed to relate to death, and what we can
expect to happen to our souls after we die.

after 2nd bullet:

after 3rd bullet:

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 The Philosopher and Death
Socrates explains to his friends that a true philosopher
should look forward to death
one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper
manner is to practice for dying and death
Socrates begins his defense of this thesis defining death
as the separation of body and soul
Forms are mentioned for what is perhaps the first time in
Plato’s dialogues

1st bullet: The purpose of the philosophical life is to free the soul from the needs of the
body. Since the moment of death is the final separation of soul and body, a philosopher
should see it as the realization of his aim. Unlike the body, the soul is immortal, so it will
survive death.

2nd bullet: Since life and death are opposites, we can reason analogously that, just as the
living become dead, so the dead must become living. Life and death are in a perpetual
cycle such that death cannot be a permanent end.

3rd bullet: This definition goes unchallenged by his interlocutors, as does its dualistic
assumption that body and soul are two distinct entities. The Greek word psuchē is only
roughly approximate to our word “soul”; the Greeks thought of psuchē as what makes
something alive, and Aristotle talks about non-human animals and even plants as having
souls in this sense. Granted that death is a soul/body separation, Socrates sets forth a
number of reasons why philosophers are prepared for such an event.

4th bullet: the Just itself, the Beautiful, and the Good; Bigness, Health, and Strength; and
“in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is. They are
best approached not by sense perception but by pure thought alone. These entities are
granted again without argument by Simmias and Cebes, and are discussed in more detail
later.

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 Three Arguments for the Soul’s
Immortality
Cebes’ brief objection:
1. he presents the belief in the immortality of the soul as an
uncommon belief (“men find it hard to believe . . .”)
2. he identifies two things which need to be demonstrated
in order to convince those who are skeptical that the soul
continues to exist after a person’s death, and that it still
possesses intelligence.

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 The Cyclical Argument
Socrates mentions that just as the souls of the dead in
the underworld come from those living in this world
and vice versa
He uses this theory as the inspiration for his first
argument
A main question that arises in regard to this argument
is what Socrates means by “opposites.”

1st bullet: Socrates mentions an ancient theory that just as the souls of the dead in the
underworld come from those living in this world, the living souls come back from those of
the dead

2nd bullet: All things come to be from their opposite states: for example, something that
comes to be “larger” must necessarily have been “smaller” before (70e-71a). Between
every pair of opposite states there are two opposite processes: for example, between the
pair “smaller” and “larger” there are the processes “increase” and “decrease” (71b). If the
two opposite processes did not balance each other out, everything would eventually be in
the same state: for example, if increase did not balance out decrease, everything would
keep becoming smaller and smaller (72b). Since “being alive” and “being dead” are
opposite states, and “dying” and “coming-to-life” are the two opposite processes between
these states, coming-to-life must balance out dying (71c-e). Therefore, everything that dies
must come back to life again (72a).

3rd bullet: We can see at least two different ways in which this term is used in reference to
the opposed states he mentions. In a first sense, it is used for “comparatives” such as
larger and smaller (and also the pairs weaker/stronger and swifter/slower)

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 The Argument from
Recollection
The soul’s immortality also is supported by Socrates’ theory
that learning is “recollection”
1. Things in the world which appear to be equal in measurement are in fact
deficient in the equality they possess
2. Therefore, they are not the same as true equality, that is, “the Equal itself”
3. When we see the deficiency of the examples of equality, it helps us to think
of, or “recollect,” the Equal itself
4. In order to do this, we must have had some prior knowledge of the Equal
itself
5. Since this knowledge does not come from sense-perception, we must have
acquired it before we acquired sense-perception, that is, before we were
born
6. Therefore, our souls must have existed before we were born.

1st bullet: Cebes mentions that the soul’s immortality also is supported by Socrates’
theory that learning is “recollection” (a theory which is, by most accounts, distinctively
Platonic, and one that plays a role in his dialogues Meno and Phaedrus as well). As
evidence of this theory he mentions instances in which people can “recollect” answers to
questions they did not previously appear to possess when this knowledge is elicited from
them using the proper methods which is likely a reference to the Meno. Based on this
theory, Socrates now commences a second proof for the soul’s immortality—one which is
referred to with approval in later passages in the dialogue.

With regard to premise (1), in what respect are this-worldly instances of equality deficient?
Socrates mentions that two apparently equal sticks, for example, “fall short” of true
equality and are thus “inferior” to it (74e). Why? His reasoning at 74b8-9—that the sticks
“sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal and another to be
unequal”—is notoriously ambiguous, and has been the subject of much scrutiny. He could
mean that the sticks may appear as equal or unequal to different observers, or perhaps
they appear as equal when measured against one thing but not another. In any case, the
notion that the sensible world is imperfect is a standard view of the middle dialogues (see
Republic 479b-c for a similar example), and is emphasized further in his next argument.

By “true equality” and “the Equal itself” in premises (2)-(4), Socrates is referring to the
Form of Equality. It is this entity with respect to which the sensible instances of equality
fall short—and indeed, Socrates says that the Form is “something else beyond all these.”
His brief argument at 74a-c that true equality is something altogether distinct from any
visible instances of equality is of considerable interest, since it is one of few places in the
middle dialogues where he makes an

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explicit argument for why there must be Forms. The conclusion of the second argument
for the soul’s immortality extends what has been said about equality to other Forms as
well: “If those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and the Good and
all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering
that it existed before and is ours, and we compare these things with it, then, just as they
exist, so our soul must exist before we are born” (76d-e). The process of recollection is
initiated not just when we see imperfectly equal things, then, but when we see things that
appear to be beautiful or good as well; experience of all such things inspires us to
recollect the relevant Forms. Moreover, if these Forms are never available to us in our
sensory experience, we must have learned them even before we were capable of having
such experience. Simmias agrees with the argument so far, but says that this still does not
prove that our souls exist after death, but only before birth. This difficulty, Socrates
suggests, can be resolved by combining the present argument with the one from
opposites: the soul comes to life from out of death, so it cannot avoid existing after death
as well. He does not elaborate on this suggestion, however, and instead proceeds to offer
a third argument.

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 The Affinity Argument
There are two kinds of existences
The soul is more like world
Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily
influence through philosophical training, the soul is
most likely to make its way to world

The third argument for the soul’s immortality is referred to by commentators as the
“affinity argument,” since it turns on the idea that the soul has a likeness to a higher level
of reality:

1st bullet:There are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that we perceive with our
senses, which is human, 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-composite, and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).

2nd bullet: The soul is more like world (b), whereas the body is more like world (a)

3rd bullet: Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily influence through
philosophical training, the soul is most likely to make its way to world (b) when the body
dies (80d-81a). (If, however, the soul is polluted by bodily influence, it likely will stay
bound to world (a) upon death (81b-82b)

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 The Affinity Argument
The World of the Senses The World of the Senses

Composites (that is, things with parts) Non-composites

Things that never remain the same from one Things that always remain the same and don’t
moment to the next tolerate any change

Any particular thing that is equal, beautiful, The Equal, the Beautiful, and what each thing
and so forth is in itself

That which is visible That which is grasped by the mind and invisible

Note that this argument is intended to establish only the probability of the soul’s
continued existence after the death of the body—“what kind of thing,” Socrates asks at
the outset, “is likely to be scattered [after the death of the body]?” (78b; my italics)
Further, premise (2) appears to rest on an analogy between the soul and body and the two
kinds of realities mentioned in (1), a style of argument that Simmias will criticize later (85e
ff.). Indeed, since Plato himself appends several pages of objections by Socrates’
interlocutors to this argument, 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 period metaphysics, sometimes referred to as his “two-world theory.” In this
picture of reality, the world perceived by the senses is set against the world of Forms,
with each world being populated by fundamentally different kinds of entities:

Since the body is like one world and the soul like the other, it would be strange to think
that even though the body lasts for some time after a person’s death, the soul
immediately dissolves and exists no further. Given the respective affinities of the body
and soul, Socrates spends the rest of the argument (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 about the afterlife, which he narrates near the
dialogue’s end; note that some of the details of the account here of what happens after
death are characterized as merely “likely.” A soul which is purified of bodily things,
Socrates says, will make its way 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 become donkeys or similar animals, the

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unjust will become wolves or hawks, those with only ordinary non-philosophical virtue will
become 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 by itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as
true whatever it examines by other means, for this is different in different 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.

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 S a lam a t
na la ng s a
lahat

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