Phaedo: Socrates’ Last Day and the Immortality of the Soul
Equécrates Asks Phaedo About Socrates’ Final Hours
Equécrates asks Phaedo to recount Socrates’ last day, and Phaedo agrees to do so. He begins by saying that Socrates, Apollodorus, Critobulus, Hermogenes, Antisthenes, Ctesippus, Simmias, Cebes, Phaedondas, Euclid, Terpsion, and Phaedo himself were present. Socrates observes that pleasure and pain are closely related, yet they never occur simultaneously; one follows the other, like two people joined at a single head.
Socrates on Death and the Philosopher
Faced with Socrates’ impending death, Cebes suggests that wise individuals should be angry about dying, while fools should feel joy. Simmias supports this view. Socrates begins to refute this by arguing that there is something after death, and it is better for the good than for the bad. He also states that those devoted to philosophy dedicate themselves to dying and being dead, in the sense that death is the separation of body and soul, and the philosopher strives to separate their soul from their body.
Socrates argues that the senses provide false information, and only thinking leads to truth. To reach truth is to separate the soul from the body or distance oneself from it, and this occurs fully in death. Therefore, death seems less fearsome.
Socrates on the Immortality of the Soul and Reincarnation
Cebes asks Socrates about the immortality of the soul. Socrates proposes reincarnation as a valid concept, suggesting that the living arise from the dead. He asserts that all beings with an opposite originate from their opposite, a point Cebes agrees with. He further states that dying must have an opposite: reviving. Revival is a process that goes from the dead to the living.
Memory and Innate Knowledge
Cebes then asks if the soul is immortal or not. It seems so because people possess important concepts already in their minds. Therefore, learning is remembering. Socrates shares this opinion, but Simmias expresses doubt. Socrates proposes that if someone remembers something, they must have known it before. Simmias accepts this. Socrates then states that memory can be triggered by similar or different things, which Simmias also accepts.
Socrates introduces the concept of “equal in itself,” distinct from things that are merely similar. We perceive things as equal, but this perception must be based on prior knowledge. Things that appear equal strive to be like “equal in itself” but fall short. This knowledge must have been acquired before our perceptions, and since we have perceptions from birth, we must have acquired this knowledge before birth. We knew what “is in itself” before birth. If we lose this knowledge at birth and later recover it, this retrieval of knowledge is remembering.
The Soul’s Existence After Death
Simmias and Cebes remain unconvinced about the soul’s immortality. Socrates argues that if the soul exists before birth and is born from death or the state of death, it must exist after death to be born again. There are two kinds of reality: the visible and the invisible. The invisible remains constant, while the visible is ever-changing. We have two aspects: body and soul. The body is visible, and the soul is invisible. The soul resembles the divine, while the body is mortal. Therefore, the body dies, but the soul does not. Upon the body’s death, the soul goes to Hades. A philosopher’s soul separates from the body in a state of purity. The pure soul is invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, finding happiness in the afterlife. However, a soul freed from an impure body is dragged back to the visible realm, becoming a ghost, and eventually returns to another body.
Harmony and the Soul’s Endurance
Simmias suggests that the soul could be a harmony, but Socrates refutes this idea. Cebes proposes that although the soul may live several lives, it could eventually die. Socrates counters this by stating that things are what they are because they share in ideas, and by participating in them, they are named after them. Not only do opposites not support each other, but things that partake in one of those opposites also do not support the opposite idea within them. Something that is “in itself” will never admit the opposite of what is in it. If the soul brings life to what it occupies, it will never admit death, as death and life are opposites. Therefore, the soul is immortal.
Socrates’ Myth of the Afterlife
Finally, Socrates recounts a myth: We live in a hollow of the Earth, and what we call the sky is actually air. Above this hollow, the Earth is composed of dazzling colors, and everything born there is in proportion. Many beings live there, including humans, some around the interior, others around the air like we live around the sea, and others on islands surrounded by air near the mainland. In essence, what for us is the sea is the air there, and what for us is the air is ether for them. They live longer and are free from disease. There are temples where the gods truly inhabit the Earth.
Beneath the Earth are immense rivers with warm and cold waters, as well as rivers of fire. One of the Earth’s chasms, Tartarus, crosses from one end to the other, and all rivers converge and flow out of it again. There are four major currents: Ocean, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus. The dead are judged. Those who have lived moderately go to the Acheron and reach the Acherusian Lake. The irredeemable are thrown into Tartarus forever. The wicked spend a year in Tartarus, then murderers go to Cocytus, and those who mistreated their parents go to Pyriphlegethon until they reach the Acherusian Lake. The good ascend to the pure abode, and among them, philosophers live eternally without bodies.