The Last Days of Socrates

by Plato

  With the very first argument for immortality we are plunged into the world of the Greek physicists’ principles, which will operate in the background to a surprising extent. Socrates was not usually known for his interest in physics, but he can scarcely avoid the subject here, bearing in mind that the Greeks had so far tackled the nature of the soul in the context of the study of the natural world. No other path is available here. Socrates, we must remember, is arguing primarily with two Pythagoreans, whose school’s contribution to physics was much admired by Plato and commemorated in his Timaeus. The tale is being told in Phlius to another Pythagorean. They have to be convinced that the laws which apply to physical realities (and to their favourite mathematical entities too),12 if applied to soul, will make it such as to survive death and survive it permanently. The need to tackle the problem within the context of the workings of the whole universe will also make it necessary for Plato to reveal the Ideas, his own contribution to the universal picture. Consequently many of these arguments have implications for Plato’s metaphysics, though we ought not to suppose that the chief message depends on the reader’s familiarity with this theory. I have chosen to save my discussion of the Theory of Ideas for a postscript, though some help also will be offered in the notes.

  The physicists had rejected the notions of outright coming-to-be and passing away, regarding all generation and destruction as no more than a modification of eternal underlying substance: either (i) substances able to take on various opposite qualities (e.g. soul in live condition and soul in dead condition), or (ii) substances which could produce opposite effects by changes of their mixture, as in Empedocles (e.g. soul combined with body, soul separated from body). The first argument (70c ff.) is designed to show that, according to these principles, that which is living will come from that which is non-living (dead), and that which is non-living from that which is living.

  Next we proceed to the argument from recollection (72e ff.) which in fact suggests that the inner person or soul exists prior to this life, but to show this much would be a big psychological step towards convincing the reader of an after-life too. The theory had apparently been set out already in the Meno (81a ff.), and it remains part of the machinery utilized by the Phaedrus some years later. The Meno had shown Socrates eliciting the correct answers on a problem of geometry from a slave who knew no geometry. Some dim ‘memory’ is allegedly awakened within the slave, ensuring that he forms correct opinions; eventually those opinions can be transformed into knowledge proper. The Phaedo is particularly keen to show that such recollected knowledge includes knowledge of the Platonic Ideas, those standards of absolute justice, beauty, equality, etc., with which the philosopher must concern himself if we heed the Phaedo. It is in fact important to Plato to suggest that these alleged objects of Socrates’ inquiry (whether or not he knew it) were the objects with which the soul would have come into contact in its disembodied life, thus giving the philosopher the expectation of meeting them in his next disembodied life too. Plato believes that we had some dim awareness of the Ideas when we first recognized their instances through the senses, but only the philosopher can convert this dim awareness into true understanding. The recollection argument suggests the existence of a stock of disembodied souls, repeatedly drawn upon as new living creatures are generated. The argument from opposites is then utilized once more in order to establish that this stock will need to be replenished by the souls which had been living earlier lives in the body (77c–d).

  Thereafter the principle of a stock of souls seems to be accepted, but their recycling does not mean that individual souls must retain their identity after death. Presocratic theories of cycles of generation involved the breaking down of matter for subsequent redevelopment, or at least its breaking down as far as atoms (for Leucippus and Democritus). Why should the soul, often thought of as being related to breath, not be dissipated at death (77d–e), only forming new souls when some process draws together bunches of dissipated soul-stuff? An argument is now brought forward in order to show that such dissipation is improbable.

  The similarity argument is central to the Phaedo, and probably given less attention than it should receive, perhaps because it is an inductive argument and not therefore compelling. The argument examines the characteristic features of (A) Bodies and (B) Platonic Ideas.

  Our body is found to be sense-perceptible and mortal like other bodies; but our soul is invisible, creating the impression that it may be immortal. It does, however, resemble the changing as well as the unchanging, depending on whether or not it is in contact with the body (79c–d); the case is by no means simple, but one might expect it to be unchanging in its own right. This creates a presumption in favour of immortality, but that is all. If not immortal, it would be expected to be nearly so (80b).

  During the argument Plato avoided saying that only the composite can be sense-perceptible, though he clearly wanted this to be so. To us there may seem to be no obvious connection. But to somebody brought up in the environment of Presocratic theories of sensation there would have been an automatic connection. Empedocles (see Meno 76c–d) and the atomists had explained sight, etc., in terms of effluxes emanating from bodies, and actually consisting of the parts of those bodies. Without parts, there could be no sensation. The idea that the soul’s invisibility made it simple rather than compound harmonizes well with the physics with which Socrates and Plato had been familiar.

  Because this argument had only created a presumption in favour of immortality, and because Socrates is dealing with the qualities of the soul without first trying to discover what it really is, Plato’s job is not done. The objections raised by Simmias and Cebes may remind one that it was not Plato’s purpose merely to induce in us a true belief, for true beliefs are transient (Meno 97b–98b); he wanted to teach us, and teaching required a superior kind of argument, one which appealed to the very nature of the subject under discussion. The reaction of the company, and indeed of Echecrates (88c–e), to the objections of Simmias and Cebes are supposed to be typical of those who have been persuaded to accept mere opinions. The reaction of Socrates, however, is that of one who knows.

  He begins by appealing for confidence in argument, confidence that it can lead us to the truth if we use it correctly: far too often at this time arguments were seen as pointers rather than proofs, as evidence which could readily be manipulated and was no more objective than a human witness. Simmias’s suggestion that the soul might be like a harmony, and vanish when the object which it harmonizes is broken, is dismissed on two counts (91c ff.): (i) this theory is incompatible with the Theory of Recollection, which Simmias takes to be proven, and (ii) the soul itself is susceptible to being more or less harmonious, unlike a harmony. Cebes’ objection that the soul may be longer-lasting than the body but still end up perishing is what requires the last, and most impressive, argument for immortality.

  The final argument explains why ‘Socrates’ (Plato, surely) had come to try to explain the world in terms of Ideas (unchanging entities that determine why any thing may have a given attribute) being present to objects, some essentially, some accidentally. That this explanation has come after (i) a fascination for Presocratic physics, and (ii) an admiration for the Anaxagorean idea that the world is governed by an Intelligence, is no accident. The Ideas may be introduced to the bodies (etc.) which are to participate in them by some kind of vector (for want of a better term)13 which entails their presence (albeit not a material presence), much as warmth is introduced to a body by the vector ‘fire’ in Presocratic physics. The Ideas are Plato’s supreme realities, much as the physical qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry, etc.) are the supreme realities of the Presocratic world. As fire, as vector of heat, cannot become cold, so three, as vector of ‘odd’, cannot become even, and so, apparently, soul, as vector of life, cannot become dead. Yet fire does not have to go on to another existence; it can be quenched and cease to be fire. Cannot soul too either withdraw or be quenched? This option is closed by what is for us virtually a
n appeal to our intuitions: if what is deathless (i.e. cannot become dead) can be destroyed, how can there be anything which is not destroyed?14 Nobody resists now; all the company are as convinced as a man can be over such a topic.

  Socrates now goes on to give his account of the universe, an account into which are built not merely an elaborate underworld bearing some strange relation to Greek tradition, but also an upper world where superior souls can eventually dwell upon the true surface of the earth – that upper world of superior entities for which the philosopher is always striving. This leads into an eschatological ‘myth’ in which Plato details the fates of various types of soul as they are rewarded or punished in the after-life. It is not surprising in this work where Pythagoreans are continually addressed that the myth is so closely bound up with an account of the geography of the physical universe, and that this geography does its best to incorporate many of the features of the ‘Orphic’ underworld. Nor is it surprising that Plato is once again trying to illustrate his conception of the workings of the psychical or metaphysical world via his picture of the physical world, for physics has never been left far behind.

  Both the geography and the eschatology are designed to ring true, yet to seem strange and remote, just as Socrates himself is designed to seem remote but knowledgeable as he gets closer to death. The work builds up to a considerable climax, when a man whom we have come so much to admire has to drink his hemlock, die, and be healed (118a). It is an emotional moment, but in the end it is an optimistic one too. The virtuous man, it seems, is duly rewarded.

  Notes

  1. Diogenes Laertius 2.105.

  2. See most notably Ronna Burger, The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth (New Haven, 1984).

  3. In fact Plato rejects this view in later works such as Republic 9, Timaeus and Philebus. He sees much intellectual activity and some naturally pleasant sensations as independent of prior pain, and also recognizes that there are some pleasures (such as those of smell) which are not preceded by any perceptible lack – or by pain, if it is agreed that all pain must be perceptible.

  4. She did this so that the weaving should never be completed, in order that she might delay marrying one of her suitors.

  5. Compare Gorgias 494a–c.

  6. Compare Euthyphro 9c–11b.

  7. Thus the notion that man’s stay on earth is a kind of captivity in which the gods are our beneficent masters (62b) has considerable illustrative value. Strictly Socrates ought to believe that the gods are sanctioning his release from the body at this time if he is to justify his own conduct. That this was his belief is best illustrated by Apology 40a–c and Crito 54c.

  8. The problem here is whether, when the soul adopts a new body, it can continue to be viewed as the same person. Plato would credit it (at least if it has entered a human body) with the ability to recollect what it learnt in its discarnate life, but the continuity seems much less strong than between the discarnate life and its previous embodiment.

  9. See David Bostock, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1986), pp. 25–30.

  10. Teiresias was a prophet whose earthly blindness had brought new powers of divine vision.

  11. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 10.2.

  12. Though orthodox Pythagoreans saw numbers, etc., as basic physical entities.

  13. This vector can be either another Idea or a physical substance; soul too can be a vector, and this seems to fall under some other heading – possibly ‘non-physical substance’.

  14. Again I think there is a hint of Presocratic physics lurking in the background, giving the appeal more power over Plato’s audience. It was a principle that anything existent could not simply vanish into nothing; change must leave behind it something changed. Now ceasing to live would seem to involve one of two things: either (i) passing into non-existence, or (ii) becoming dead. Presocratic physics would seem to ban (i); but the soul is such that it cannot take on the attribute ‘dead’, so (ii) is also impossible. Hence assuming the soul is subject to the same rules as the entities of physics (as the metaphysician must), it cannot ‘die’ in either of the two imaginable ways.

  PHAEDO

  In a remote Peloponnesian township Echecrates catches up on the details of Socrates’ death. At last a traveller had arrived who could tell them – Phaedo of Elis, a follower of Socrates who had been with him on his final day.

  57(a) ECHECRATES: Were you there with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, the day when he drank the poison, or did you hear about it from somebody else?

  PHAEDO: I was there myself, Echecrates.

  ECHECRATES: Then what did the Master say before he died, and how did he meet his end? I should very much like to hear. None of the people in Phlius go to Athens much in these days, (b) and it is a long time since we had a visitor from there who could give us any definite information, except that he was executed by drinking hemlock; nobody could tell us anything more than that.

  58(a) PHAEDO: Then haven’t you even heard how his trial went?

  ECHECRATES: Yes, someone told us about that; and we were surprised because there was obviously a long interval between it and the execution. How was that, Phaedo?

  PHAEDO: A fortunate coincidence, Echecrates. It so happened that on the day before the trial they had just finished garlanding the stern of the ship which Athens sends to Delos.

  ECHECRATES: What ship is that?

  PHAEDO: The Athenians say it’s the one in which Theseus sailed away to Crete with the seven youths and seven maidens, and (b) saved their lives and his own as well. The story says that the Athenians made a vow to Apollo that if these young people’s lives were saved they would send a solemn mission to Delos every year; and ever since then they have kept their vow to the god, right down to the present day. They have a law that as soon as this mission begins the city must be kept pure, and no public executions may take place until the ship has reached Delos and returned again; which sometimes takes a long time, if they meet winds which hold it back. The mission is (c) considered to begin as soon as the priest of Apollo has garlanded the stern of the ship; and this happened, as I say, on the day before the trial. That’s why Socrates spent such a long time in prison between his trial and execution.

  ECHECRATES: What about the actual circumstances of his death, Phaedo? What was said and done, and which of the man’s companions were with him? Or did the authorities refuse them admission, making him pass away without a friend at his side?

  PHAEDO: Oh no; some of them were there – quite a number, in (d) fact.

  ECHECRATES: Please be kind enough to give us a really detailed account – unless you are pressed for time.

  PHAEDO: No, I have the time, and I’ll try to describe it for you. Nothing gives me more pleasure than recalling the memory of Socrates, either by talking myself or by listening to someone else.

  ECHECRATES: Well, Phaedo, you’ll find that your audience feels just the same about it. Now try to describe every detail as carefully as you can.

  (e) PHAEDO: In the first place, my own feelings at the time were quite extraordinary. It never occurred to me to feel sorry for him, as you might have expected me to feel at the deathbed of a very close friend. The man actually seemed quite happy, Echecrates, both in his manner and in what he said; he met his death so fearlessly and nobly. I could not help feeling that even on his way to the other world he would have divine protection, and that when he arrived there too all would be well with him, if that could ever be said of anybody.1 So I felt 59(a) no sorrow at all, as you might have expected on such an occasion of mourning; and at the same time I felt no pleasure at being occupied in our usual philosophical discussions – that was the form that our conversation took – I experienced a quite weird sensation, a sort of curious blend of pleasure and pain combined, as my mind took it in that in a little while my friend was going to die. All of us who were there were afflicted in much the same way, alternating between laughter and tears; one of us in particular, Apollodorus2 – you know (b) the man and what he’s like, don’t you?

 
; ECHECRATES: Of course I do.

  PHAEDO: Well, he quite lost control of himself; and I and the others were very much upset.

  ECHECRATES: Who were actually there, Phaedo?

  PHAEDO: Why, of the Athenians there were this man Apollodorus, and Critobulus and his father,3 and then there were Hermogenes and Epigenes and Aeschines and Antisthenes.4 Oh yes, and Ctesippus of Paeanis,5 and Menexenus,6 and some other local people. I believe that Plato was ill.7

  ECHECRATES: Were there any visitors from outside?

  (c) PHAEDO: Yes: Simmias of Thebes, with Cebes and Phaedondas; and Euclides and Terpsion from Megara.8

  ECHECRATES: Oh, weren’t Aristippus and Cleombrotus there?

  PHAEDO: No, they were in Aegina, apparently.

  ECHECRATES: Was there anybody else?

  PHAEDO: I think that’s about all.

  ECHECRATES: Well, what path did the discussion take?

  PHAEDO: I will try to tell you all about it from the very (d)beginning. We had all made it our regular practice, even in the period before, to visit Socrates every day; we used to meet at daybreak by the court-house where the trial was held, because it was close to the prison. We always spent some time in conversation while we waited for the door to open, which was never very early; and when it did open, we used to go in to see Socrates, and spend the best part of the day with him. (e) On this particular day we met earlier than usual, because when we left the prison on the evening before, we heard that the boat had just arrived back from Delos; so we urged one another to meet at the usual place as early as possible. When we arrived, the porter, instead of letting us in as usual, told us to wait and not to come in until he gave us the word. ‘The Eleven9 are taking off Socrates’ chains,’ he said, ‘and warning him that he is to die today.’ After a short interval he came back and told us to go in.

  When we went inside we found Socrates just released from (a) his chains, and Xanthippe10 – you know her! – sitting by him with the little boy on her knee. As soon as Xanthippe saw us she burst out into the kind of thing women generally say: ‘Oh, Socrates, this is the last time that you and your friends will be able to talk together!’ Socrates looked at Crito. ‘Crito,’ he said, ‘someone had better take her home.’ Some of Crito’s (b) servants led her away crying hysterically.