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Philosophy as death within Plato’s Phaedo.

Within the scientific and philosophical community, it is accepted as common knowledge that human beings are the only species that are aware of their own mortality long before physical death occurs. This knowledge of our own precarious existence and its inevitable conclusion has informed all forms of human knowledge. From the fantastic flights from reason within mysticism to the ivory towers of modern science, the metaphorical figure of death has haunted and occasionally inspired humanity in the fields of religion, philosophy, science and art.

Within classical Greek society, these questions were also being asked but in a whole new light. For the first time these questions were asked outside of religion and subject to debate, rhetoric and logic. Within Plato’s “Phaedo” one can see how the questions asked since prehistory were being asked and answered along what is now seen as classical lines. But Plato not only dealt with the question of the soul after death but also how such inquiries affect the philosopher in this life. However, he also equates the true philosopher with death itself. In other words he states that the practice of philosophy is the same as the practice and preparation for death. Herein lies the problem with the “Phaedo”. If philosophy is simply preparation for death, does knowledge achieved through experience have any intrinsic value? What would be the Socratic answer to the philosopher who does not accept the “proofs” of life after death? The questions created from this premise produce a snowball effect of problems that negates the strengths of the dialogue. Its apparent original intent was to demonstrate proofs for post-mortem existence. Such being the case, each of the arguments will be summarized in light of why equating death with philosophy is invalid and unsound reasoning.

The first line of inquiry that Socrates takes is how the “true philosopher” should act in relation to the approach of death. He postulates that the philosopher should not care for the body, food, sex, family, prestige or power since these are seen to be hindrances to the pursuit of wisdom. He also emphasizes that courage is the special virtue of the philosopher.

“Then all but the philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.” (Jowett/500)

Here Socrates demonstrates that the philosopher is courageous in the face of death, not from bravado or any lesser virtue, but from a love of knowledge. Death is seen as the greatest good, since it will remove all hindrances from that same pursuit of wisdom. Without any physical needs the philosopher will be free to comprehend reality free from distraction. Although the “Phaedo” dates from Plato’s middle period, during which the theory of forms was not fully developed, if indeed it ever was, it is easy to perceive the relationship of this theory of death to the comprehension of the forms themselves. It should be noted that these elements do not establish any bearing on philosophy as death, but simply relate how the philosopher should respond to both death, and the after-death state-if indeed such occurs. It is clear that there is a great distinction between an impartial acceptance of death as dissolution of physicality and the longing for death.
The second argument is the principle of opposition. This is the notion that everything has its opposite ( such as life/death, cold/hot ) and each opposite necessarily creates the oppositional state. Thus life proceeds from death, being from non-being in the same way that removing all light sources from a windowless room would “create” darkness in that room.
“Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites? I mean such things as good and evil, just and unjust-and there are innumerable other opposites which are generated out of opposites. And I want to show that this holds universally of all opposites; I mean to say, for example, that anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less.”
( Jowett/503)
As a metaphysical theory of the immortality of the soul, there is a logic to the opposites theory. However one could extrapolate opposites, ad nauseum, without proving either the existence of the soul, nor its survival after death or-ironically enough-its opposite. Socrates does address the fear of Ceres that the soul may dissipate at death. Strangely enough Ceres accepts ( or voices the opinion of others ) the preexistence of the soul but questions post-existence. The major problem with the theory is that the existence of the soul is assumed as a hidden premise. As to how the soul could pre-exist yet not survive death is an idea that does not follow rationally and is inconsistent with any concept of soul within Greek philosophy, conventional religion or the major mystery cults.
The third and final argument that will be addressed deals with the previously mentioned preexistence of souls. The argument presents the concept of recollection which is one of the first attempts at a epistemological theory in western literature. The argument of recollection is central to all of Plato’s writings. In “Phaedo”, it is the justification of why experience is unnecessary for the acquisition of knowledge. It is, in brief, the view that all knowledge is recollected from a previous existence. Therefore there is no learning possible outside of remembering forgotten knowledge. Obviously if the theory of recollection is accepted, it proves that souls pre-existed their physical bodies.

“Then, Simmias, our souls must have existed before they were in the form of man-without bodies, and must have had intelligence.” (Jowett/ 508)

It would then be logically consistent to accept that souls survive the body’s death since they would necessarily be non-dependent upon the body as a condition of survival.
The conflict within this argument is that it uses the conclusion as the premise proceeding with all the clarity of circular logic. It requires one to accept the premise that all knowledge is recollected from a previous existence in order to prove that the soul pre-existed and by extension will survive death. But if you disallow the leap of faith required within this argument, there are no conclusions possible. All one could surmise is that if, and only if, knowledge is recollected rather than learned then souls must pre-exist the body and thus survive physical death. But with its litany of maybes, ‘could be’s, and ifs: it leaves a great deal to be desired within any argument and it divorces itself from any hope of philosophical certainty.
Taken as a whole, the arguments Plato presents do offer a philosophical justification for the belief in life after death. While it is true that there are certain weaknesses in the arguments, this is true of almost all arguments in this area of inquiry. This does not invalidate the arguments but leaves the reader to delve deeper into the questions themselves without the luxury of prepackaged metaphysics. Baring scientific advances in this area, this is the fuzzy area of thought that the subject is forced to inhabit.
However the initial argument, that the act of philosophy is the act of preparing and wishing for death, is not merely a weak argument but a false argument. It can easily be argued that none of the arguments offered by Plato really answer the analogy he presents. It limits philosophy to armchair mysticism and denies the validity of experience. The argument can be effectively shown to be false by the following thought experiment: 1) Suppose that God or the Gods do not exist. 2) Suppose a group of scientists isolate the “death gene” and create a procedure that eliminates human mortality. 3) Under such circumstances, would philosophy still exist and have independent validity? Despite the simplicity of the experiment, it is easy to see that philosophy would still be valid. People will always need various skills of logic and clear thinking. Additionally, human beings will always ask questions beyond the expertise of science. Whether it is a question of ethics, artificial intelligence, or logic; civilization desperately needs those who specialize in thought itself as societies become more complex.
But it is not necessary to judge Plato too harshly on this count. The true significance of Plato is that he asked questions that we still ask today. It is not the answers he proposed that are the most significant but rather the questions he asked and the methodology that still bears Socrates’ name. Before any answers can be found, if they are to be found, one needs to clarify the questions.

References:

*Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and Introductions by B. Jowett, M.A. in Five Volumes. 3rd edition revised and corrected (Oxford University Press, 1892).

Philosophy as death within Plato’s Phaedo.

Greek Science and The Library of Alexandria