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Plato's Dialogues #2
Phaedo
This is an English translation of one of Plato's great dialogues of Socrates talking about death, dying, and the soul due to his impending execution. Included is an introduction and glossary of key terms.
Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate audience.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 381
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About the author
Plato
5,328 books8,694 followersPlato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
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August 17, 2015
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
[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
October 17, 2021
Tiene ideas interesantes aunque no me convence mucho lo propuesto. Al menos, no del todo.
June 2, 2020
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.
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.
October 18, 2025
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 imagined account of that day. Plato was not present when Socrates died.
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.
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.
November 23, 2017
"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.
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.
[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.
April 25, 2019
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.
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.
September 7, 2013
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.
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.
February 25, 2016
Το έργο 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.
October 3, 2016
Το διαβάζω απο εκδόσεις βιβλιοπωλίον της Έστιας σε μεταφραση Ιωάννη Πετράκη.
December 8, 2025
Plato’s Phaedo may be one of the most beloved texts in the history of philosophy; yet it also marks one of the greatest ideological ruptures ever set into motion. For me, this work is not simply a dialogue written about the death of Socrates—it is an act of intellectual appropriation. The silence left behind by Socrates’ death… Plato transforms that silence into a worldview, even a metaphysics.
And an inevitable question arises:
Which was the greater wrongdoing?
The killing of Socrates,
or Plato engraving the idea of the soul into the mind of humanity?
It is a striking question, but one that must be asked.
In my view—and as anyone who listens a little to the pre-Socratics will sense—Plato’s concept of the soul became one of the most powerful theories that pulled human beings away from being part of nature and bound them to an “afterlife.” This idea spread from the West to Christianity, and from there to global belief systems.
People loved Plato for precisely this reason: he placed a light within the darkness of death.
(How could one not be persuaded?)
But the price of that light was the loss of the courage to see nature as it truly is.
Consider this for a moment:
If it had been Plato who drank the hemlock instead of Socrates, it is not hard to imagine what our religions, metaphysics, and “immortal soul” narratives might look like today. Perhaps the world would be more secular, more material, perhaps more faithful to pre-Socratic wisdom. Who knows?
Of course, this is the curiosity of those who think as I do.
For others, the sanctification of Plato is perfectly natural—because Plato gave humanity a story about what comes after death. And people love that story even more than they love the truth.
Phaedo reveals the brilliance of this construction:
Every word spoken by Socrates on his deathbed becomes, in Plato’s hands, a brick opening the door to his own metaphysics.
While the reader watches Socrates die, what they are actually watching is the triumph of Plato’s thought.
What I learned from this book is precisely this:
how the suffering of Socrates was transformed, in Plato’s hands, into a theory of the soul.
To take a pain and carry it forward with an idea—that may well be Plato’s greatest achievement.
And that achievement changed the entire course of intellectual history.
I admit it.
And an inevitable question arises:
Which was the greater wrongdoing?
The killing of Socrates,
or Plato engraving the idea of the soul into the mind of humanity?
It is a striking question, but one that must be asked.
In my view—and as anyone who listens a little to the pre-Socratics will sense—Plato’s concept of the soul became one of the most powerful theories that pulled human beings away from being part of nature and bound them to an “afterlife.” This idea spread from the West to Christianity, and from there to global belief systems.
People loved Plato for precisely this reason: he placed a light within the darkness of death.
(How could one not be persuaded?)
But the price of that light was the loss of the courage to see nature as it truly is.
Consider this for a moment:
If it had been Plato who drank the hemlock instead of Socrates, it is not hard to imagine what our religions, metaphysics, and “immortal soul” narratives might look like today. Perhaps the world would be more secular, more material, perhaps more faithful to pre-Socratic wisdom. Who knows?
Of course, this is the curiosity of those who think as I do.
For others, the sanctification of Plato is perfectly natural—because Plato gave humanity a story about what comes after death. And people love that story even more than they love the truth.
Phaedo reveals the brilliance of this construction:
Every word spoken by Socrates on his deathbed becomes, in Plato’s hands, a brick opening the door to his own metaphysics.
While the reader watches Socrates die, what they are actually watching is the triumph of Plato’s thought.
What I learned from this book is precisely this:
how the suffering of Socrates was transformed, in Plato’s hands, into a theory of the soul.
To take a pain and carry it forward with an idea—that may well be Plato’s greatest achievement.
And that achievement changed the entire course of intellectual history.
I admit it.
May 29, 2018
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)
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)
October 19, 2015
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.
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.
September 1, 2021
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).
October 15, 2015
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.
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.
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.
November 30, 2022
¡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.
January 10, 2025
کتاب لذتبخشی بود و بیش از جنبهی فلسفیش، جنبهی ادبیش بود که کاملاً خاصش میکرد. افلاطون توی این کتاب دربارهی روح و دنیای پس از مرگ و کلاً مسائل ماورایی صحبت میکنه و از زبان سقراط با منطق و استدلال "اثبات" میکنه که روح انسان از بدنش جداست و پس از مرگ به جهان دیگهای میره!
سوالی که اینجا برای من پیش اومده اینه:
تصور کنید که شما موقعیتی که هنوز پیش نیومده رو کاملاً توی ذهنتون تصور میکنید؛ مثل یک مصاحبه کاری یا یک اعتراف عاشقانه، و با منطق و استدلالِ بدون نقص تکتکِ صحنهها رو طوری برنامهریزی میکنید که به بهترین نتیجه ممکن برسه. شما توی ذهنتون هیچ اشتباهی نکردید و همه چیز طبق منطق و ریاضی پیش رفته.
و حالا اون موقعیت واقعاً پیش اومده و نه تنها هیچکدوم از اتفاقات طبق سناریوی ذهنیتون پیش نمیره، بلکه بعضاً افتضاحی به بار میآد که کل وجود آدم رو تا فیهاخالدونش بخاطر اعتماد کردن به منطق و استدلال و سپردن مسائل به اونها پشیمون میکنه!
خب سوال بنده اینه که وقتی منطق و استدلال توی همچین موقعیتهای ساده و بیسیکی به کار نمیآد، شما چطوری میآیید مسائلی به این بزرگی مثل خدا و روح و جهان پس از مرگ رو باهاش "اثبات" میکنید؟
مگه این نیست که سناریوی منطقی، در درون ذهن کاملاً بینقص بنظر میآد و تو واقعیت آدم رو کاملاً ضایع میکنه؟ پس چطور میتونید انقدر راحت به منطق اتکا کنید و خدا و روح رو باهاش ثابت کنید و یک جوری بینقص هم اینکار رو بکنید که دهن هر کسی که ذرهای شک یا مخالفت میکنه بسته بشه؟
آیا این خودش یک جور سفسطه نیست؟
یعنی ممکنه همون سقراطی که با مغالطهگرها و سوفسطاییها مخالف بود، درواقع خودش بزرگترین سفسطهگر باشه؟
شاید هم ذهن جوان و پستمدرن منه که اصلاً و مادرزاداً عادت داره همه چیز رو زیر سوال ببره و به همه چیز شک کنه. شاید اگه من هم اون روز اونجا بودم، سقراط با یه استدلال بینقصِ دیگه دهن من رو هم بهم میدوخت!
با این همه زمانی که ازش دور میشدم باز هم با خودم میگفتم: "نه! هنوز یه چیزی این وسط مشکل داره! من با منطق و استدلال راضی نمیشم و تو نمیتونی با همون منطق و استدلال به من ثابت کنی که اشتباه میکنم! این اصلاً تو کَتِ من نمیره سقراط جان! حالا تو که مُردی ولی سوالات من بیجواب موندن. خدا بیامرزدت."
سوالی که اینجا برای من پیش اومده اینه:
تصور کنید که شما موقعیتی که هنوز پیش نیومده رو کاملاً توی ذهنتون تصور میکنید؛ مثل یک مصاحبه کاری یا یک اعتراف عاشقانه، و با منطق و استدلالِ بدون نقص تکتکِ صحنهها رو طوری برنامهریزی میکنید که به بهترین نتیجه ممکن برسه. شما توی ذهنتون هیچ اشتباهی نکردید و همه چیز طبق منطق و ریاضی پیش رفته.
و حالا اون موقعیت واقعاً پیش اومده و نه تنها هیچکدوم از اتفاقات طبق سناریوی ذهنیتون پیش نمیره، بلکه بعضاً افتضاحی به بار میآد که کل وجود آدم رو تا فیهاخالدونش بخاطر اعتماد کردن به منطق و استدلال و سپردن مسائل به اونها پشیمون میکنه!
خب سوال بنده اینه که وقتی منطق و استدلال توی همچین موقعیتهای ساده و بیسیکی به کار نمیآد، شما چطوری میآیید مسائلی به این بزرگی مثل خدا و روح و جهان پس از مرگ رو باهاش "اثبات" میکنید؟
مگه این نیست که سناریوی منطقی، در درون ذهن کاملاً بینقص بنظر میآد و تو واقعیت آدم رو کاملاً ضایع میکنه؟ پس چطور میتونید انقدر راحت به منطق اتکا کنید و خدا و روح رو باهاش ثابت کنید و یک جوری بینقص هم اینکار رو بکنید که دهن هر کسی که ذرهای شک یا مخالفت میکنه بسته بشه؟
آیا این خودش یک جور سفسطه نیست؟
یعنی ممکنه همون سقراطی که با مغالطهگرها و سوفسطاییها مخالف بود، درواقع خودش بزرگترین سفسطهگر باشه؟
شاید هم ذهن جوان و پستمدرن منه که اصلاً و مادرزاداً عادت داره همه چیز رو زیر سوال ببره و به همه چیز شک کنه. شاید اگه من هم اون روز اونجا بودم، سقراط با یه استدلال بینقصِ دیگه دهن من رو هم بهم میدوخت!
با این همه زمانی که ازش دور میشدم باز هم با خودم میگفتم: "نه! هنوز یه چیزی این وسط مشکل داره! من با منطق و استدلال راضی نمیشم و تو نمیتونی با همون منطق و استدلال به من ثابت کنی که اشتباه میکنم! این اصلاً تو کَتِ من نمیره سقراط جان! حالا تو که مُردی ولی سوالات من بیجواب موندن. خدا بیامرزدت."
September 24, 2022
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.
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.
January 27, 2021
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.
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.
July 26, 2025
Platão é sempre uma delícia de ler, dos filósofos um dos mais literários, imagine então o Fédon tido como seu diálogo mais abertamente literário, então imagine o quão delicinha essa nova tradução da @penguincompanhia é, que eliminou todos aqueles tu e vós das traduções clássicas e deixou mais próximo de um diálogo real de gente como a gente na contemporaneidade, além de tudo é lotado de notas e com uma introdução preciosa do Gabriele Cornelli. Imperdível tanto para filósofos quanto para literatos, além de qualquer um que queira estar afiado com o método socrático.
January 4, 2025
---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.
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?
----------------
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.
July 26, 2023
Socrates spends his last hours cheerfully comforting some of his students by leading them through a process of intellectual inquiry intended to establish that we need not fear death, because the soul is immortal and its natural state is unhoused of the body. In this state, the final nature of reality will be perceived and understood, at least for a time, before the soul returns to life in a (never-ending?) cycle of birth and death. I observe many striking parallels with the depiction of the Buddha's final hours in the Mahaparinibannasutta.
"Phaedo" has rightly been called a locus classicus for many of the dualities that have underpinned much of western thinking since it was first set down, such as mind/matter, body/soul, intellect/emotion, and, I would certainly add, male/female - one of the most dramatically significant moments of the dialog is when Socrates sends his weeping wife Xanthippe out of the room.
In this sense, this dialog shows us the Socrates excoriated by Nietzsche, who suggested in Beyond Good and Evil that we ask if he did not perhaps deserve the hemlock. Socrates' philosophy exemplifies what Hegel diagnosed as the most pernicious and inevitable outgrowth of subject/object dualism - the "inverted word," which views the actual world as unreal and insists that phantoms of the intellect are the only things that truly exist.
Certainly it is easy to feel a snarky contempt for the obvious deficiencies of Plato's writings, as though he, like us, had read Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein, and should be judged accordingly. Such a reading is largely a confession of one's own inability to get hold of the underlying ideas and to understand their role in the long history of European ideas.
For readers tempted to dismiss the "By Zeus, it is so," formalism of these dialogs, I urge that you focus not on the words, but on the meaning of the words. For myself, I can say that although I agree with Plato on pretty much nothing, very few philosophers have so completely shaken up my worldview as this towering figure, and I find him very much worth the effort.
"Phaedo" has rightly been called a locus classicus for many of the dualities that have underpinned much of western thinking since it was first set down, such as mind/matter, body/soul, intellect/emotion, and, I would certainly add, male/female - one of the most dramatically significant moments of the dialog is when Socrates sends his weeping wife Xanthippe out of the room.
In this sense, this dialog shows us the Socrates excoriated by Nietzsche, who suggested in Beyond Good and Evil that we ask if he did not perhaps deserve the hemlock. Socrates' philosophy exemplifies what Hegel diagnosed as the most pernicious and inevitable outgrowth of subject/object dualism - the "inverted word," which views the actual world as unreal and insists that phantoms of the intellect are the only things that truly exist.
Certainly it is easy to feel a snarky contempt for the obvious deficiencies of Plato's writings, as though he, like us, had read Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein, and should be judged accordingly. Such a reading is largely a confession of one's own inability to get hold of the underlying ideas and to understand their role in the long history of European ideas.
For readers tempted to dismiss the "By Zeus, it is so," formalism of these dialogs, I urge that you focus not on the words, but on the meaning of the words. For myself, I can say that although I agree with Plato on pretty much nothing, very few philosophers have so completely shaken up my worldview as this towering figure, and I find him very much worth the effort.
February 21, 2025
Više volim Sokrata koji "zna da ne zna" šta se dešava posle smrti, nego ovog, koji pokušava da dokaže nešto nedokazivo. Na mene je ovde najveći utisak ostavio Simija, koji uprkos tome što mu Sokratovi argumenti deluju uverljivo, ne može do kraja da poveruje. Platonovi dijalozi su prezabavni.
Simija: Ni ja, bar po onom što se ovde govorilo, odista ne znam kako da ne verujem. Ali opet, kad pomislim koliko je važno to o čemu se raspravljalo, i kolika je slabost ljudske prirode, primoran sam da u sebi još negujem bezverje o onome što se govorilo.
Simija: Ni ja, bar po onom što se ovde govorilo, odista ne znam kako da ne verujem. Ali opet, kad pomislim koliko je važno to o čemu se raspravljalo, i kolika je slabost ljudske prirode, primoran sam da u sebi još negujem bezverje o onome što se govorilo.
January 23, 2019
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
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
June 29, 2022
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)
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)
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December 12, 2015Jiwa. Socrates bercerita mengenai jiwa. Paling aku tertarik ialah dengan masalah 1+2
July 11, 2022
„Și de unde să-l luăm, Socrate, pe descântătorul minunat ce vindecă de spaime, de unde, dacă tu ne părăsești?”
February 23, 2019
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.
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.
March 27, 2011
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.
May 8, 2013
Socrates is a dick. He likes to hear himself talk even more than I do. That's probably why they killed him. It was the only way to get him to shut the fuck up.
January 10, 2023
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)
(recomendación: editorial Gredos, prólogo y traducción: Carlos García Gual)
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