Burger Ronna - The Phaedo - A Platonic Labyrinth - Yale University Press (1984) PDF
Burger Ronna - The Phaedo - A Platonic Labyrinth - Yale University Press (1984) PDF
Burger Ronna - The Phaedo - A Platonic Labyrinth - Yale University Press (1984) PDF
RONNA BURGER -
Bibliography: p.
lncludes index.
1. Plato. Phaedo. 2. lmmortality {Philosophyt--
History. l. Title. /
8379.887 1984 184 84-40191
ISBN 0-300-03163-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Das Sein-wir haben keine andere Vorstellung davon als
Leben-
Wie kann also etwas Totes 'sein'?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE Prologue (57a-59d) 14
CHAPTER TWO Logos and Mythos (59d-63e) 24
CHAPTER THREE The Practice of Dying j63e-69ej 37
CHAPTER FOUR Genesis (69e-72e) 51
CHAPTER FIVE Anamnesis (72e-77d) 69
CHAPTER SIX Likeness (77d-84b) 85
CHAPTER SEVEN Images of the Psyche (84c-88b) 101
CHAPTER EIGHT Misology (88c-9lc) 112
CHAPTER NINE Harmony (9lc-95e) 122
CHAPTER TEN The Techne of Logos (95e-102b) 135
CHAPTER ELEVEN Immortality (102b-107b) 161
CHAPTER TWELVE Mythos (107c-115a) 187
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Pharmakon (ll5a-118a) 206
NOTES 218
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 76
INDEX 283
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
life, and for this he is put on trial once more in this final
conversation. Although his apparent eagerness for death
would seem to be a violation of the divine prohibition against
suicide, as Socrates himself admits, he absolves himself of
this responsibility by interpreting his conviction as "some
kind of necessity" imposed upon him by a god. The potential
charge of impiety is replaced, therefore, by an accusation
against the imprudence Socrates displays in wanting to run
away from his good masters the gods and another accusation
against the injustice he displays in wanting to run away from
his present companions. Socrates' defense against these
charges consists in an apologia for "the practice of dying and
being dead," which he delivers as a description of, partly in
the voice of, those whom he calls the genuine philosophers.
In this speech, Socrates constructs the "idea" of the class of
philosophers, which is as alien to himself as the philosophers'
understanding of the "ideas" is to his own.
Like these genuine philosophers, the young men to whom
Socrates addresses his defense understand the practice of dying
to consist in the separation of the psyche from the body: they
warn Socrates that his defense will be acceptable to them only if
it can be shown that after death the psyche does indeed have
"some kind of power and phronesis. " 21 It is, presumably, the
attempt to provide this justification of his defense that guides
the first series of arguments in the dialogue. Socrates thus
pursues the purification he sought to compensate for his neglect
of demotic music; for his account of the fate of the psyche after
death is, he admits at one point, an /(incantation,, designed to
charm the child in us who is overcome with fright at the
thought of death. Socrates thus tries, or seems to try, to satisfy
the challenge issued by his interlocutors, whose understanding
of the practice of dying is motivated by the fear of annihilation
and the correlative hope for immortality. But precisely by
calling attention to that motivation, Socrates transforms the
meaning of the practice of dying; he brings to light his own
understanding of it as a separation of logos from JUst that attach-
ment to the self that the hope for immortality betrays.
10 INTRODUCTION
The necessity of this transformation is exhibited at the
very center of the dialogue, when Phaedo, after describing the
failure of the first series of arguments to prove the immortality
of the psyche, interrupts his account to report the exchange he
shared with Socrates. Warning Phaedo not to cut off his hair on
the morrow in mourning for Socrates, but to cut it immedi-
ately if they cannot revive the logos, Socrates establishes an
alliance with Phaedo against the most threatening danger fac-
ing them, which is not the fear of death, but the loss of trust in
argumentation altogether. This experience of "misology,"
which Socrates considers the greatest evil, is the mevitable
result of a misconception of wisdom as direct contact of the
pure psyche with the "beings themselves." For, Socrates ex-
plains, just as the eyes are blinded by the attempt to observe
the sun directly in an eclipse, the psyche is blinded by the
attempt to investigate the beings directly in the pragmata, the
many, variously qualified things that come to be and pass
away. 22 While Socrates' conduct may provide the most effec-
tive weapon against the fear of death, the only defense against
misology that is capable of protecting the psyche from blinding
itself is an art of argumentation. This techne of logos 23 Soc-
rates identifies as a "second sailing": it abandons the attempt
to investigate the beings themselves in order to investigate
their truth through logoi and is illustrated by the turn from the
first to the second half of the dialogue.
The division of the Phaedo into halves, separated by this
central interlude, exhibits the tension between concern with
the self and concern with the argument for its own sake, be-
tween the fear of death together with the hope for immortality
and the fear of misology together with a techne of logos. This
tension is reflected not only in the transformed understanding
of what it is to think and to know, but at the same time in the
transformed meanings of psyche, death, and immortality. The
series of arguments in the first half of the dialogue assumes the
identification of psyche with mind, medium of cognition; it
defines death as the separation of pysche from body and takes
that separation to be the necessary condition for knowledge.
INTRODUCTION 11
the other, yet whenever a man pursues one he gets the other as
well, as if the two were joined in one head. An Aesopian my-
thos, on the other hand, might claim that the god, seeing the
two at war and wishing to reconcile them but unable to do so,
fastened their two heads together so that one always follows
upon the other. This double account is a model in miniature of
both the form and the content of the dialogue as a whole: while
it is derived from the tension between logos, or what Socrates
considers the greatest music, and mythos, or demotic music, it
12 INTRODUCTION
reflects at the same time the tension between the philoso-
pher's desire for release of the psyche from the body and the
divine will responsible for imprisoning the psyche in the body~
Socrates' twofold account of the relation between pleasure
and pain-an original unit that human desire attempts to sepa-
rate into two or an original dyad that divine will attempts to
put together-presents opposite causes of the same result; it
exhibits precisely that perplexity-the coming to be of two by
the addition of two ones or by the division of one into two-
that made Socrates, according to the intellectual autobiogra-
phy he offers, recognize the danger of self-contradiction lurk-
ing behind all mechanistic explanation of how something
comes into being. He discovered a protection against that
danger by applying his techne of logos to the question of
cause-the cause, that is, of something being what it is. That
anything which is to be two, for example, must participate in
the dyad is the "safe but foolish" answer to the question of the
"cause" of the doubleness of pleasure and pain, and conse-
quently of the twofold structure of the dialogue modeled on
that account.
Participation in the dyad, then, is the cause of the dialogue
being what it is; it does not inform us whether it comes into
being by the addition of two originally separate units or by the
division in two of an original unity. But the necessity of there
being two opposing parts is the same necessity that compels
Socrates to explain his second sailing only after showing the
deficiencies of a first sailing14 The way in which the second
half of the dialogue serves as a corrective for the first is mani-
fest in the internal structure of each, for which Socrates' re-
marks on the relation of pleasure and pain furnish the model.
The opposites that are united in the first half of the dialogue,
when Socrates invites his interlocutors to "investigate and
mythologize" about his imminent journey abroad, are sepa-
rated in the second half of the dialogue: the pure argument,
which considers the immortality of the psyche only as an illus-
tration of the danger of self-contradiction, is followed by a pure
mythos, which illustrates the danger of neglecting" care for the
INTRODUCTION 13
Prologue
deed: since no stranger has come for a long time from Athens
to Phlius, 7 the Phliasians know only that Socrates drank the
poison and died. They have indeed been informed about the
tnal, yet Echecrates, like the interlocutors present with Soc-
rates in the Athenian prison, shows no interest in discussing
its implications but is curious only about the length of time
intervening between Socrates' condemnation and death. In the
explanation of this lapse of time that Phaedo offers.' however,
he illuminates, without being aware of doing so, the connec-
tion between Socrates' death and its political context.
death to life. If the divine command were indeed the only law
without excepnon, it might seem to entail the universal supe-
riority of life over death 19-if, at least, the gods know and sup-
port the good for man. Prec1sely because it is a prohibition, on
the other hand, the law against suicide presupposes the possi-
bility of the human desire for death. But this admission in
itself is a puzzling one: there seems to be no standpoint from
which one could make the judgment that it is better to be dead,
since it is a judgment that can only be made by one who is
alive, and it is for himself, presumably, that he determines
what is preferable. 20 Socrates thus indicates a tenswn within
the divine prohibition and within the human desire for death,
as well as between them.
The two clauses through which Socrates describes this
structure of opposition, however, are only apparently parallel.
For while the first is entirely conditional-it will appear won-
drous if the divine prohibition is universal and entails the uni-
versal superioritY of life over death 21 -the second clause is in-
troduced with an unconditional claim-since there 1s someone
for whom or something for which death is better, it may appear
wondrous if the pursuit of that benefit were forbidden. The
asymmetry of the two clauses is indicated, moreover, by the
distinction between future and present: the univeral goodness
of life, construed as a consequence of the "simplicity" of the
divine prohibition against suicide, will perhaps appear won-
drous, and this prediction is fulfilled at the moment Socrates
begins the second clause, with its admission of the possible
superiority of death. But the one unconditional claim asserted
by Socrates could be accepted, without contradicting that
which precedes or follows, only if those for whom or that for
which it is better to be dead is not a man: Socrates is about to
argue that it may be better if one is a philosopher-not for the
man himself, however, but only for his psyche. 22 The kind of
"death" that is preferable, consequently, may not be the phys-
iological phenomenon that constitutes the ordinary under-
standing of the word.'-'
Socrates' paradoX1cal formulation does indeed so arouse
32 LOGOS AND MYTHOS
Cebcs' wonder that he utters an oath, slipping into his native
dialect-"Let Zeus know!"-while smiling gently. That the
prohibition that simultaneously implies and denies the possi-
ble superiority of death to life would fill even Zeus with
wonder makes Cebes smile for the first time, 24 just as Simmias
is about to smile for the first time in acknowledging that the
many would make fun of the philosopher's desire for death
l64b). A surprising alliance is thus implied between the gods
and the many, with their natural desire for life, over against the
philosopher, with his strange desire for death. But this conflict
as a rule is confirmed by its one exception: Socrates' apparent
readiness for death is to be satisfied only through the coopera-
tion of the Athenian demos, who believe death to be the great-
est evil, while their decision is in tum interpreted by Socrates
as a sign of "some necessity sent by a god" (cf. 62c).
Since his statement, Socrates admits, must appear irra-
tional (alogos), to consider what sense it may have, he must
initiate his interlocutors into a secret logos, which describes
both the desire for liberation from life and the source of re-
straint against it. It is as if we men are on some kind of guard
duty or in some kind of prison and are not allowed to set
ourselves free or run away. With this secret logos, Socrates
tranforrns the political significance of his discussion with
Crito concerning his responsibility not to run away from the
Athenian prison; 25 at the same time, he transforms the signifi-
cance of his defense before the Athenian jury concerning his
responsibility not to run away from the post where he believed
the god stationed him, engaging in the activity of examination,
any more than he ran away from the post in battle where his
Athenian commanders stationed him. 26 But the "great secret"
Socrates now divulges, which presents life itself as the true
prison or the true guard duty, puts those prior claims into
question: if the highest responsibility were the obligation not
to run away from the prison of life, Socrates would have had to
run away from the Athenian prison, as Crito entreated, or if it
were the obligation not to run away from the guard duty of life,
Socrates would have had to run away from the duty of phi-
LOGOS AND MYTH OS 33
11
ing," possessing/' or "hitting.'' This unacknowledged meta-
phoric language, in which the allegedly purest state of the
psyche is depicted in terms of the sense of touch, 11 betrays the
same union of opposites 1mplicitly ascribed to asceticism and
hedonism. It expresses the understanding of phronesis as noth-
ing but a paradoxically noncorporeal contact with noncorpo-
real entities, whose necessary counterpart is the abstraction of
a pure psyche. For if one were to admit that perception and the
passions belong to the psyche itself, even its release from the
body could not serve as a sufficient condition for the acquisi-
tion of phronesis. Motivated by this goal, the psyche of the
philosopher dishonors the body and flees from it to be alone by
itself; while presumably aiming at contact with "the beings,"
the psyche in fact desires to be only with itself as a separate
being.
Socrates draws attention to this implication by turning,
with an apparent abruptness, from considering psyche itself by
itself to ask Simmias, "Do we say that the just itself is some-
thing or nothingl" When Simrnias shows no more hesitation
than he did in agreeing that we believe death is something,
Socrates supplements his question about the just with one
about the beautiful and good. He does not raise the question of
how, if each is "itself by itself," there could be any relation
between them, and if there is not, how it is possible to formu-
late what each is. Socrates first inquires whether such things
are ever seen with the eyes or grasped by any of the senses,
through the body, before he adds to his list size, health, and
strength, 11 which seem to be necessarily related to our percep-
tion of bodies as characterized by a particular size, state of
health, or degree of strenth. Socrates' apparently superfluous
reference to these characteristics tacitly invites us to step back
and reconsider the cases of the just, beautiful, and good. In fact,
42 THE PRACTICE OF DYING
Socrates observes, his account concerns "all the others, in a
word (heni logo), the being lousia), what each in fact is."" But
the figure of speech he uses indicates, if read literally, that this
being is 'in logos/ its unity //in one logos."
1 1
Genesis
insist, then, that all opposites do come into being, nor that
everything that comes into being has an opposite, but only that
any opposite that comes into being must do so from its oppo-
site. Although he does not clarify the meaning of this "from,"
he preserves the general assumption of the argument by imply-
ing that one opposite is the place from whence the other
emerges.
The restricted scope of the principle is confirmed, in any
case, by Socrates' illustration of it on the model of compara-
tives: when something comes to be greater, it must first have
been smaller, and if it later becomes smaller, it must first have
been greater. Socrates does not argue that something that is
small must necessarily become greater, or something great
smaller, but only that something that does become greater or
smaller must have previously been less so. The "now" in
which something is said to have become greater is the same
"now" that determines its having been smaller. To determine,
as in Socrates' further examples, that something has become
stronger, quicker, or better is simultaneously to determine that
it must have been weaker, slower, or worse. A prior condition
is not what it is until a posterior condition makes it so--like
the painful revealed to be such only by comparison with the
so-called pleasant that follows from it lcf. 60b).
The coming to be of a present "more" is by definition from
a past "less," the coming to be of a present "less" by definition
from a past "more": the principle is based on the necessity not
of phusis, but of logos. Yet what is it exactly that does thereby
come to be from its opposite? Socrates will attempt to clarify
this principle only when it later emerges as an apparent contra-
diction of the final argument based on the principle of mutual
exclusion of opposites. The generation of opposites from each
other refers, Socrates will then explain, not to the opposite
qualities themselves, which would lead to a violation of the
law of noncontradiction, nor to the coming to be and passing
away of a subject as such, which may not have an opposite, but
rather, to the pragrnata-like "Socrates greater" and "Socrates
smaller" -each of which is the inseparably bonded union of a
58 GENESIS
subject with one or two opposite qualities (cf. 102d-103b)." It
is precisely this distinction between opposite pragmata and
opposites themselves, however, that Socrates seems intention-
ally to suppress in the present argument. He has established
the mutual generation of opposites, furthermore, only on the
model of comparative states, without explaining whether or
how this model can be applied to the generation of the living
and the dead from each other, which is presumably the inten-
tion of the argument.
Anamnesis
and correct logos--he does not say whether these are iden-
tical-is his ability to answer for himself when questioned
beautifully by another, an ability most clearly illustrated by
the use of mathematical constructions. 3 This very reminder
Cebes considers "most beautiful"; yet he certainly does not
ask any questions through which Simmias could discover the
truth for himself but simply expects him to trust a doctrine he
had heard before. Socrates naturally expresses concern, there-
fore, with Simmias' possible distrust of the proposition that
so-called learning is really recollection. And Simmias, not de-
spite, but because of, denying his distrust, justifies that con-
cern: he admits that he already begins to remember, hence to
be persuaded-not to learn.
Dissatisfied, apparently, with Cebes' enactment of recol-
lection, Socrates takes over. But he does not bolster our confi-
dence in the thesis when he seeks Simmias' agreement that, if
anyone remembers anything, he must have previously known
it. For knowing is here presented as the condition for remem-
bering, when remembering is supposed to explain how know-
ledge comes into being. Socrates cannot, in any case, have a
precise sense of "knowing" in mind when he refers to it as a
condition for remembering: Simmias has just remembered a
doctrine he prevwusly heard, without necessarily having un-
derstood it. Socrates nevertheless uses the word for scientific
knowledge (episteme). But he does not clarify its meaning
when he seeks Simmias' further agreement that, if someone
has seen or heard or perceived something in any way and rec-
ognizes not only that but also some other thing of which the
knowledge is not the same, he must recollect the other thing
that he has in mind. Socrates does not say only that the recol-
lected object is other, but also that the knowledge of it is other,
distinguished, presumably, from the perception that awakens
it; he had originally claimed only that recollection requires
knowledge that is prior. This difficulty turns out to haunt the
entire argument, which is precisely an attempt to translate
knowledge other than, but related to, perception into another
time of acquiring it.
Although knowledge of a man, Socrates explains, is other
72 ANAMNESIS
than know ledge of a lyre, whenever a lover sees the lyre or
cloak or any possession of his beloved, the perception of it
awakens in his thought the form feidosj of the buy to whom it
belongs. The term that we expect should designate the noetic
"form" awakened by perception, refers in fact to the body of
the beloved imagined by his lover at the sight of something
that belongs to him. It is eros or desire, Socrates implies, that
forges the link between a present perception and an absent
object of thought.' The lover's idealization of his beloved
spreads from the eidos of the boy to all his possessions. He
projects what is really his own longing for the boy onto the
objects that awaken that longing, and his unawareness of that
projection is the condition for his idealization. Socrates does
not say why this should be the primary model for the recollec-
tion thesis. But it brings to mind his earlier account of the
lover of phronesis, based on the model of the human lover who
would willingly follow his beloved to Hades in the hope of
seeing and being with his pure psyche f68a). It is no accident,
then, that Socrates' apparently arbitrary examples of the lyre
and the cloak, which point beyond themselves to the beloved,
happen to be precisely what Simmias and Cebes will choose as
images of the body, which points beyond itself to the psyche
[85e-86b, 87b-e).
Like the lover's recollection of his beloved, Socrates pro-
ceeds, the thought of Cebes is often awakened by the sight of
Simmias; and thousands of other cases, Simmias swears by
Zeus, thinking perhaps of countless other inseparable pairs of
young men. This experience occurs mostly, Socrates admits,
when the object has been forgotten through time or inatten-
tion. But the required "otherness" of the reminder and that of
which it is a reminder is not dependent on temporal distance
necessarily: recollection of a man can arise from seeing a pic-
ture of a lyre or horse, recollection of Cebes from seeing a
picture of Simmias, or finally, recollection of Simmias himself
from his own picture. In the cases preceding the last, the link
between the present perception and the thought it awakens
depends upon subjective associations in the observer; only in
the last case does it seem to belong necessarily to the image
ANAMNESIS 73
Likeness
fall short of it. Psyche and body, Socrates will disclose, in their
mere likeness to opposite principles, fall short of them. And
the deficiency of each implies that their separability from each
other 1s always a matter of degree. This continuum amounts,
in turn, to a hierarchy of kinds of psychai: each is "like" the
kind of life it leads, determined by the degree of its attachment
to corporeal needs and related desires. When Socrates finally
translates this likeness into identity, he turns the argument
into an Aesopian fable: each psyche becomes in another life
what it is like in this life, given its habits, its hopes, and its
fears. The argument thus transforms what looks at first like a
"physiological" analysis of the nature of psyche mto a "psy-
chological" one.
That transformation is anticipated by the outline So-
crates provides for the strategy of the argument. He begins
with a question: For what sort of thing is it fitting to suffer
the pathos of dispersion, and for what sort is it not fitting?
But he inserts at the center of this apparently ontological
dichotomy a very different consideration: For what sort of
thing would we fear suffering this pathos? After determining
these matters, he mquires, must we not investigate, as the
basis for our hopes and fears about our psyche, to which
class it belongs? Yet the very order of this proposed outline
casts doubt on the possibility of discovering an objective di-
vision of the dispersible and the indispersible that could be
applied to the nature of the psyche independently of our
hopes and our fears.
psyche makes use of the body, that is, the senses, for investiga-
tion, it is dragged down to those things that are never the same,
where it wanders about, confused and dizzy, like a drunkard.
The psyche seems to have no nature of lts own but only to
assimilate itself to Its object. For when, on the other hand, it
investigates alone by itself, departing into the pure and ever-
lasting and deathless to which it is akin, it has rest from its
wanderings and remains always the same and unchanging,
since it is in contact with such.
Isn't it this condition {pathema) of the psyche, Socrates
asks, that IS called phronesisl 9 He recalls with this question
the genuine philosophers' longing to escape from the dizziness
of inquiry through the senses in the hope of acquiring
phronesis by the separate psyche after death. But Socrates'
evaluation of this hope will be made clear only when he pre-
sents his own interpretation of that mode of inquiry through
which he seeks escape from dizziness and blindness by taking
"refuge in logoi" (cf. 99d-I00al. Now, however, it is on the
basis of his appeal to phronesis as a condition of the psyche
that Socrates raises the question he should have asked origi-
nally-to which eidos the psyche is more alike and akin. For
Socrates' description of phronesis saves Cebes from having to
ask about the necessary connection between invisibility and
self-identity in order for him to agree that the psyche is as a
whole and completely more like that which is always the same
than like that which is not. And while they should have con-
trasted with this the characterization of the psyche when it is
not in possession of phronesis, they conclude by agreeing that
the body must be more like "the other."
To grant the likeness of the psyche to the invisible and
unchanging, does not, of course, satisfy the challenge for a
demonstration of its immortality and indestructibility. Soc-
rates therefore supplements the proposed division with the
distinction between the divine, which is by nature fit to rule
and lead, and the human, fit to obey and serve. 10 To which
should the psyche and body be likened, Socrates asks, if, when
they are joined together, nature commands one to rule and be
92 LIKENESS
master, the other to be ruled and enslaved? Cebes ignores Soc-
rates' reference to the "command'' of nature, which implies
the recalcitrance of body as well as of psyche to their assigned
roles as ruler and ruled; he is confident that the body is like the
mortal, psyche like the divine. While Cebes must assume the
identity of the divine and the immortal, hence of the mortal
and the human, he does not seem to realize that his agreement
on the likeness of the psyche to the divine thus commits him
to acknowledge the mortality of man as such.
Without making this consequence explicit, Socrates
reaches the desired conclusion of the argument: the psyche is
most like the divine and immortal and noetic and monoeidetic
and indissoluble and that which is always the same, while the
body is most like the human and mortal and polyeidetic and
nonnoetic and dissoluble and that which is never the same 11
Not only has the division of the invisible and visible, which
provided the premise for the argument, disappeared altogether,
but the original claim that the psyche is more like one eidos
than the body is, and the body more like the other, has been
transformed into the more radical conclusion that each is most
like one of two opposing classes characterized by a presumably
inseparable set of qualities. Through its function in ruling over
the body, the psyche is like the divine and immortal; through its
possession of phronesis it is like the noetic and monoeidetic,
hence like what is always the same and unchanging. But the
indissolubility of the psyche-the crucial question at stake-
would follow only from its being incomposite, which Socrates
has not established, and he has argued only that, if there were
something incomposite, it would most likely be that which is
always the same and unchanging.
from all the fears and hopes that distort it. In his image of
Penelope, then, Socrates must be thinking of the way in which
logos or the greatest music is contantly being rewoven with,
after havmg been separated from, mythos or demotic music.
And there is no better reflection of that process than the pres-
ent argument.
Socrates' own understanding of his image, however, is not
shared by the psyche of the philosopher he describes to Cebes,
any more than it would have been by the genuine philosophers
he described to Simmias. The same illusion that motivates
their desire for purification motivates the belief of the psyche
to which Socrates now refers-that it must follow calculation
(logismos) as long as it lives and thus arrive, when it dies, at
what is akin to itself, freed from human evils. Socrates admits
that the psyche is released from human evils only when it dies
lcf. 77dl. But what is this psyche that dies? Always abiding in
logismos and thus actualizing its kinship with the monoei-
detic, it seems to be no longer a psyche, but a being itself by
itself. Of course, to identify this being with one's true self, as
the genuine philosophers do, is to _be entirely determined by
the fear of annihilation and the hope of avoiding it, hence to be
enslaved to, rather than liberated from, human evils. If that
liberation is what it means to be dead, perhaps Socrates alone
is capable of dying.
Simmias and Cebes could not possibly refute the conclu-
sion Socrates addresses to both of them-that such a psyche
would hardly fear being torn apart at its release from the body,
scattered by the winds; having been purified of all pathe, it
could not experience such a fear even if it were, after death,
"no longer anything anywhere." Socrates ends this third argu-
ment, as he indicated m his original outline for it, by determin-
ing not what kind of being is naturally subject to dispersion,
but what kind of psyche is naturally inclined to fear dispersion.
His condemnation of the foolishness of this fear is entirely
independent of any proof of the immortality of the psyche.
Socrates thus completes the initlal series of arguments, in the
same way that he completed his opening defense \69d-e) and
100 LIKENESS
will complete his final myth (ll4d-e),. with an appeal to the
necessity of overcoming that attachment to the self manifest
in the fear of death. 28 But this is a self-overcoming, as Socrates
understands it, by and within the psyche, not by a pure psyche
of the body, and its basis is not the hope of eternal existence
after death but confidence in a particular mode of inquiry and
in the way of life devoted to it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
tion of the body, survives it; but once the psyche has been
destroyed, the body displays its natural weakness and decays.
Cebes thus transforms the notion of the psyche enduring
through a cycle of many lives, which Socrates introduced in
the first argument, into an analysis of the constant passing
away and reproduction of the body by the psyche within what
we consider one life span. 19 But he is willing to concede-since
the structure of the argument is no different-that the psyche
might endure through a repeated cycle of buths and deaths as
ordinarily understood; for even this concession would not
prove that the psyche could not be altogether destroyed in one
of its deaths. Cebes thus reproaches Simmias for his denial of
the possible survival of the psyche beyond the destruction of
the body; and if "immortality" means the capacity to endure
through what we call death, Cebes is willing to grant it. But he
does so only to render more explicit the common fear he shares
with Simmias: if death is redefined as the destruction of the
psyche, which finally occurs in one particular dissolution of
the body, Socrates has not yet proven that the psyche is incapa
ble of meeting that fate.
Simmias and Cebes think they have brought to light
Socrates' failure to demonstrate that the psyche cannot be de-
stroyed at death. Simmias attempts to do so through an appar
ently reasonable image that reduces psyche to nothing but a
quality resulung from the mixture of elements of the body.
Cebes' more laughable image, on the other hand, reduces body
to nothing but a product of the psyche, though it does not
explain why the psyche requires this protection or adornment.
It is now clear why Socrates insisted on combining their two
objections before responding to either. For one amounts to the
claim that there 1s in truth only body, the other that there is
only psyche; their juxtaposition thus results in the separation
of psyche from body that Socrates first presented as the defini-
tion of death. But while their combined objections perform this
separation in logos, each one alone is an attempt to account for
psyche as a pnnciple of life. What they have unwittingly
brought to light is the true problem underlying the first series
110 IMAGES OF THE PSYCHE
of arguments: not only have they failed to demonstrate immor-
tality, for which we have no evidence, but in assuming the
identification of psyche with mind, they have also failed to
account for life itself.
Now Simmias' image of the derivative status of psyche, as
Socrates will shortly argue, simply contradicts his acceptance
of the identification of psyche with mind. Cebes' image, on the
other hand, because it makes body derivative from psyche,
raises this question: Why, if psyche is mind, should it take on
its ministerial role in producing the body, especially since that
toil is the cause of its own destruction' Cebes must have been
convinced by now of Socrates' prudence in wanting to run
away from his masters, the gods. But wouldn't it be better,
then, not to be born at all' If it were, the genuine philosophers'
desire would be reasonable, even if it is not fulfilled. Of course
in that case, the recollection thesis, which requires perception
as the condition for learning, would have to be reiected; and
this Cebes is no more willing to do than Simmias. Yet, while
the recollection thesis thus presupposes the necessity of life, it
cannot explain its possibility. In his response to Cebes, which
occupies the second half the dialogue, Socrates attempts to
meet his objection by accepting and unfolding its implications.
He must replace the recollection thesis with an account of
thinking and knowledge that does not depend on the identifi-
cation of psyche as mind. Life remains inexplicable, Socrates
acknowledges, unless it is simply assumed to belong to the
essence of psyche.
The question raised by Cebes' image thus points to the
transformation that will be accomplished by the second half of
the dialogue. But as Cebes himself understands it, his objection
only shows the necessity of completing what he thinks the
first series of arguments was meant to accomplish: Socrates
has yet to demonstrate, Cebes insists, that the psyche is alto-
gether immortal and imperishable (pantapasin athanaton te
kai an6lethron). And in the absence of that demonstration,
Cebes concludes, anyone who feels confident about death dis-
plays his utter foolishness. But Cebes thus betrays his lack of
IMAGES OF THE PSYCHE Ill
Misology
Harmony
ing by Zeus for the third and final nme in the conversation,'
admits he IS far from rhinking he kilO'-vs the cause-no longer
the causes-of these matters. Socrates' former opinions were
put into question, it seems, by the goal of discovering one
comprehensive cause, at least of becommg and being greater,
applicable to growth, magnitude, and number, yet he still has
not achieved that goal on the last day of his life. Socrates may
have been "awakened from his dogmatic slumbers" by his at-
tempted investigation of nature; but 1t was that pursuit, he
confessed, by which he was intensely blinded. If that is the
same blindness that results from any attempt to look directly
at things and grasp them through the senses (d. 99e), it is not at
all evident how it could have brought to light the perplexities
concealed in Socrates' prephilosophic opinions, or in the logi-
cal structures they presuppose.
our attention to the fact that "greatnesS is the name not only
11
for one member. but for the pa.ir of opposites. That something
said to be small is actually only smaller than somethmg else,
however, makes one wonder how anything could be said to be
great without further qualification. The latter ascription
seems, rather, to be a misleadingly abbreviated way of express-
ing the relation of one thing being greater than another. When,
in fact, Socrates just described his perplexities about greatness,
he spoke of one man or one horse being greater than another;
his reference to members of two species suggests that, even if
something were said to be great, it would be relative to the
kind of thing it is. Socrates does not go back to ask, although
perhaps he should have, whether any of the so-called beautiful
things is only more beautiful by the relative absence of ugli-
ness, either in comparison with other members of the same
kind or as a superlative instance of one kind, which would
have to be compared to other kinds." To be beautiful, then,
would always be a matter of being more or less so.
Socrates' example of greatness and smallness recalls, in
any case, the difficulties he eventually came to recognize in his
prephilosophic opinions about cause-how a man grows larger,
"by what" one man or one horse IS greater than another, or ten
greater than eight, or a two-cubit length greater than a length
of one cubit (96c-e]. He is preparing to instill in Cebes the very
perplexities he himself experienced when he found himself
blinded by the investigation of nature and recognized that he
could no longer claim to possess knowledge of how something
becomes greater, or how anything comes to be at all. Socrates
must replace the fear of death, which led Cebes to seek adem-
onstration of the imperishability of the psyche, by the fear of
self-contradiction, which must compel Ccbes. as 1t does Soc-
rates, to maintain the safety of logos at all costs.
Cebes would not accept the claim, Socrates advises, that
one man was greater or smaller than another "by a head" but
would insist that one thing can be greater than another only by
greatness and because of the great, one thing smaller than
another only by smallness and because of the small. Socrates
152 THETECHNEOFLOGOS
emphasizes that Cebes would speak in this way-he may appar-
ently think otherwise-for if he were to speak of one man as
greater or smaller than another by a head, Socrates warns, he
would fear the attack of an opposing logos, charging, first, that
the greater would be greater and the smaller smaller by the
same thing, and further, that the greater would be greater by a
head, which is small, and that would be monstrous' Cebes
quite understandably laughs at Socrates' warning: the laughter
that has all along accompanied the fear of death is being trans-
formed, along with that fear, into the laughter appropriate to
the fear of self-contradiction. What Cebes is to fear is an attack
against the claim that one cause could produce opposite re-
sults, or that one result could be produced by a cause opposite
to it. This is precisely the structure Socrates outlined for Sim-
mias in describing that exchange of greater and lesser through
which courage and moderation come into being from their op-
posites (68d-69a). 43 From that irrational "shadow-painting,"
Socrates assured Simmias, the true character of virtue together
with phronesis is a "purification." He must now spell out for
Cebes exactly what is required for such "purification": he
must disclose the means of avoiding any apparent contradic-
tion that could be exploited by the disputatious to arouse dis-
trust in logos (cf. 90c, lOle).
Socrates proceeds to warn Cebes of the danger in claiming
that ten is greater than eight by two and because of this, or that
a two-cubit length is greater than a one-cubit length by half; he
must seek safety, rather, in the claim that ten is greater than
eight by number and because of number, a two-cubit length
greater than a one-cubit length by rnagnitude. 44 But the fear
motivating these answers is only "somehow" the same as in
the previous case, Socrates admits; for Cebes would now have
to claim, in following Socrates' advice, that ten is greater than
eight and eight smaller than ten by the same thing, number, or
a two-cubit length greater and a one-cubit length smaller by
the same thing, magnitude. Since, indeed, Socrates has just
established that everything greater must be so only because of
the great, everything smaller only because of the small, num-
THE TECH!'iE OF LOGOS 153
Immortality
ever they occupy to have not only their own idea but also that
of some opposue. For the exclusion of an opposite is here as-
signed to something that is intermediary between an eidetic
opposite w1th wh1ch it is inseparably connected and some
other thing that it occupies, it has, moreover, its own idea that
it imposes, together with that of the eidetic opposite, on that
which it occupies. To clarify this new formulation, Socrates
renders explicit the implied distinction between the triad and
three: the triad m its intermediary role is the idea of three that
compels whatever it occupies to be three as well as odd. 13
Just when Socrates seems to have arrived at an adequate
clarification, however, he exploits the ambiguity of his original
formulation by expanding, while apparently merely repeating,
it: such a thing-now, presumably, whatever is occupied-
would never adm1t the idea that is the opposite of the shape
(morphe) responsible for producmg its own characterization. 14
A collection of three units occupied by the idea of three would
never admit the idea of the even, for the latter is the opposite of
the odd, which is, as Socrates goes on to confirm, the morphe
that produced its characterization as three and odd." And since
three has no part in the 1dea of the even, Socrates concludes,
the triad is uneven. Socrates seems to have pursued a rather
circuitous route merely to establish that the idea of any odd
number must be uneven. In doing so, in any case, he casts
doubt on h1s original claim that not only the odd itself, but also
some other-the triad, for example-must always have the
name "odd" whenever it is (104a). He has, furthermore, implic
itly put into question the appropriateness of applying the mod-
el of numbers, with its division into two kinds, to the case of
psyche: Socrates will never speak of an idea of psyche, in
which each particular psyche must participate, corresponding
to the eidetic number that is itself an idea, imposed together
with tbe idea of me even or the odd on any mamematical
number participating in it. 16
Rather man explicitly raise this question, however, Soc
rates proposes to define once more, with further unac
knowledged variations, what sort of nonopposites do not admit
170 IMMORTALITY
opposites themselves. The triad, though not the opposite of the
even, not only refuses to admit it, but also brings forward
against the even the opposite with which it is always con-
nected; and in the same way, the dyad always brings forward
the opposite of the odd, and fire the opposite of the cold, and all
the numerous others. 17 Socrates has expanded his military me-
taphor, for the intermediary is now not only an occupying
force, but it actively brings forward the opposite, with which it
is allied, in self-defense against the approach of the hostile
opposite. Socrates asks Cebes to examine the rev1sed formula-
tion that results from this addition: not only do opposites
themselves exclude each other, but also that which always
brings forward some opposite to that which it approaches will
never admit "the opposition" of that which is brought forward.
Socrates no longer speaks of the opposite itself approaching-
either its own opposite, or something that always possesses its
opposite, or something that compels whatever it occupies to
have its own idea as well as that of an opposite, or whatever is
occupied by that which always possesses an opposite. He
points ahead to the problematic application of this principle.
For when his silence about the poison as the carrier of death
compels him to speak of death itself as approaching a man, we
do not know what this active agent could be. At the moment,
in any case, the opposite itself is treated as passive, and its own
opposite is said to be excluded, not necessarily by what is ap-
proached, but by the active intermediary that brings forward an
opposite to whatever it approaches.
After transforming the general principle through so many
twists and turns, Socrates offers to refresh Cebes' memory,
since it cannot hurt to listen to it over and over again' Just after
this warning, however, in response to an alleged repetition that
in fact puts into question the application of the general
principle, 1' Cebes claims to be following Socrates and to agree
"most intensely." Socrates is therefore saved from having to
specify whether the exclusion of an opposite has been attrib-
uted to the nonopposite that always brings forward an opposite
to something it occupies or to that which is thus occupied,
IMMORTALITY 171
dead looks like the opposition between even and odd, not like
that between hotter and colder, which is a matter of degree, or
greater and smaller, which is a relation dependent on an act of
companson. But this range of examples has been mtroduced,
presumably, precisely because of the questions it raises. Phy-
siologically, of course, a man is either alive or dead. But isn't it
by allowing us to "witness" Socrates dying that Plato has led
us to understand what it means to be "more alive"'
However that may be, Socrates srmply accepts Cebes'
claim about the opposition of being alive and being dead in
order to draw the desired conclusion from the final formula-
tion of the principle of exclusion of opposites [cf. 105a): psyche,
which always brings forward life to the body it occupies, could
never admit the opposite, which has been identified as death. If
the original definition of death were read into this conclusion,
the impossibility of "dead psyche" would be tantamount to a
denial of its possible existence apart from the body. The pres-
ent argument was introduced, however, in response to Cebes'
objection, which amounted to a redefinition of death as the
perishing or destruction of the psyche (9ld, 95d). It must dem-
onstrate, accordingly, that psyche cannot admit death, under-
stood as its own destruction. 25 But this interpretation does not
necessarily conflict with that based on the definition of death
as separation; for it makes no claim at all about the possibility
of the separate existence of the psyche. The impossibility of
psyche remaining what it is and becoming dead may look like
the impossibility of three remaining what it is and becoming
even. Yet, while three cannot become even because it is itself
odd, psyche cannot become dead not because it is itself alive,
but only because it is the cause of life in the body.
Before stating the expected consequence of the claim that
psyche will never admit the opposite of life, Socrates intro-
duces an apparent digression on the names we give opposites.
By asking what we now call "the non-admitting of the idea of
the even," he encourages Cebes to remember the characteriza-
tion of the non-opposites that do not admit the idea opposite to
that which is in them (104d-e); Cebes does not, therefore, refer
176 IMMORTALITY
tu ''the odd" itself, but rather to the characteristic of a number
that is "uneven." But Socrates does not specify whether he is
thinking of a characteristic or of the subject characterized by it
when he proceeds to ask what names we give to "the non-
admitting of the just" and to "that which does not admit the
musical"; and Cebes only confirms that ambiguity when he
answers in reverse, "Unmusical, the other the unjust." Soc-
rates seems, in any case, to have introduced a rather superflu-
ous pair of examples. He recalls, without any immediately evi-
dent reason, his description of the guilt from wh1ch he sought
purification-namely, the possible injustice of his neglect of
demotic music lcf. 60d-6lb). Yet it is in fact no accident that
these examples appear at just this point, for Socrates is finally
prepared to overcome that guilt: he is about to establish a
perfect harmony between demotic music and philosophy, by
showing how both maintain-though construed in very differ-
ent ways-the immortality of the psyche_,.
Socrates asks finally what we call that which does not
admit death, and Cebes, imitating the established model, re-
plies "athanaton." But this characterization could be ascribed,
on the basis of the preparatory argument, to the body as long as
it is occupied by psyche no less than to the psyche as long as it
occupies a living body. 2 ' Body as such, of course, has no essen-
tial connection with one opposite eidos; it is therefore capable,
in contrast with psyche, of still remaining what it is while
undergoing the genesis from being alive to being dead. It is only
the ensouled body, then, that participates in the eidos of life,
since it is not by virtue of being body that it does so. But it
is equally true that only embodied psyche can be called
"deathless." 28 For psyche earns this ascription by virtue of be-
ing the cause of life in the body it occupies, and to say that it
cannot be dead is to deny the possibility of its existence apart
from that defining function.'" Nevertheless, when Socrates
reaches the conclusion, "Then the psyche is something atha-
naton," what Cebes hears is the ordinary understanding of the
term athanaton, which would be ascribed only to the gods,
who are deathless because they never cease to exist. Cebes
IMMORTALITY 177
two halves, the first beginning with the principle of the mutual
generation of oppositt pragmata the second v.'ith the principle
1
Mythos
ing for the dying man, since he would at least be released from
his ignorance or folly, whose continuation would have been an
evil (9lb). Socrates now confirms the desuability of escaping
from the evils that belong to the psyche itself, while denying
that the termination of life is the condition for that escape: but
now, since it is manifestly immortal, there would be no salva-
tion for it except by becoming best and most prudent (phroni-
mos). Socrates refers, one can assume, to the psyche; but its
manifest immortality is only its inability to be dead whenever it
exists, and the evil from which it must escape is not life itself-
as the genuine philosophers believe-but the opposite of being
good and prudent. 5 The phronesis, therefore, that Socrates iden-
tifies as the only salvation cannot be that which the genuine
philosophers seek as the automatic result of dying, when the
psyche is separated from the contamination of the body.
Death alone is no escape, Socrates argues, because the
psyche takes with it into Hades its education and nurture 6 just
this consideration has been absent from Socrates' attempts to
demonstrate, in the first argument that "thepsychai of the dead
are in Hades" (72d), in the second, that "our psycha1 are before
we were born" (76e), and in the last, that "ourpsychai will be in
Hades" (107aj. In the third argument, on the other hand, Soc-
rates admitted that not every human life is conducted in accor-
dance with the true nature of the psyche, and 1t is the manner of
life a man has led that determines what the destiny of his psyche
is "like." That the invisible psyche, in any case, departs into
Hades as the place most like itself (80dL is the sort of charm we
ought to chant to ourselves, Socrates insisted, in order to as-
suage our childish fear of death. Now the story he is about to tell
about the "journey abroad" after death is, Socrates admits at its
conclusion, a magic charm designed to work on the experiences
of the psyche. As such, it must represent a continuation of the
third argument, which brought the first half of the conversation
to an end. Only the comic imagery of that speech, which con-
cluded with a description of the hierarchy of classes of human
psychai, ranging from the bestial to the divine, foreshadows
Socrates' present attempt to lend support to the hope that death
brings something better for the good than for the bad.
190 MYTH OS
j107d4-108c5J Shifting to indirect discourse in the middle of
his sentence about the education and nurture of the psyche-
" which are said to benefit or harm the dying man greatly from
the outset of his joumey"-Socrates continues his report, al-
though he begins referring not to the psyche, but to the man
who has died. The daim6n allotted to each man leads him after
death to a certain place, where all are gathered together to be
judged;' then, after journeying into Hades led by one guide and
experiencing there what is necessary for the requisite time,
another guide brings him back. Socrates recalls the ancient
logos about the cycle of living and dying, which provided the
hypothesis of his first argument. He intended then, apparently,
to guarantee the necessary eternity of the cycle lcf. 77d) by
demonstrating the impossibility of a genesis in the direction of
one of two opposite states without a return genesis in the di-
rection of the other. But it is precisely such an irreversible
linear motion that Socrates is about to describe as the fate of
any human beings who are perfectly impure or perfectly
pure'-if there are any. In the present tale, moreover, Hades
represents the place of imprisonment after the judgment of the
dead man; but it represented in the first series of arguments an
at least temporary escape from the punishment of life, which
consists in the imprisonment of the psyche in the body.
Although he claimed to be no mythmaker 161 b), Socrates
now competes with Aeschylus, whose Telephus asserts that a
simple road leads into Hades: if there were one simple path,
Socrates reasons, there would be no need of guides, yet there
seem to be many divisions in the path, as the holy rites and
laws here give witness-' Socrates does not explicitly offer his
own interpretation of the complexity that characterizes the
road into Hades. But his account of the daimon who leads the
dying man recalls the role previously assigned to a personified
philosophy, who takes hold of the psyche when it is welded to
the body and encourages it gently, trying, although not neces-
sarily succeeding, to set it free l82e-83a). Socrates proceeds to
distinguish the orderly and prudent psyche, which follows its
guide and is not ignorant of its circumstances, from the psyche
MYTHOS 191
that is desirous of the body and therefore flits about the visible
place for a long nme until after much struggling 1t is led away
by force. Socrates will try to persuade Crito, at the conclusion
of this tale, that he himself, being aware of h1s circumstances,
has no interest in flitting about the Atheman prison any
longer, but is prepared to follow, without any struggle, the
guidance of the man in charge of administering the poison.
In contrasting the fate that awaits the pure psychai with
that of the impure, Socrates recalls the language of the myster-
ies \cf. 69cl: while the psyche that has lived purely and mea-
surably enjoys gods as companions and guides and dwells in its
fitting place, the psyche that is impure and responsible for
impure acts, like unjust homicides, is shunned by all and left
to wander about in perplexity. 10 Now Socrates had originally
contrasted the orderly and prudent psyche with one that can-
not give up its attachment to the body. But whereas the pru-
dent psyche might reasonably be identified as one having lived
purely and measurably, it is far from evident why its opposite,
the body-loving psyche, should be represented by the mur-
derer. Perhaps Socrates is thinking of those who committed
murders in the belie, based on their love of the body, that the
greatest punishment is death-that is, separation from the
body. If Socrates exemplifies the orderly and prudent psyche,
his contrary might be exemplified by the Athenian demos,
which condemned him, perhaps unjustly, to the punishment of
death, believing it to be the greatest evil!!
ble things"-Socrates now, for the first time, adn1it~ the possi-
bility of pleasures that belong properly to learning. To pursue
these, Socrates adds, is to adorn the psyche with no alien
adornments, but w1th those that belong to it-moderation and
justice and courage and freedom and truth. In his account of
true virtue at the conclusion of his initial defense, Socrates
added to moderation and justice and courage "phronesis itself"
l69b), he now replaces the latter, in his final description of the
proper "cosmos" of the psyche, with freedom and truth. He
indicates the perhaps surprising distinction between, on the
one hand, participation in phronesis based on hope for the
beautiful reward of a particular fate after death and, on the
other, pursuit of the pleasures of learning and adornment of the
psyche with freedom and truth based on the need to be confi-
dent about one's own psyche in living and dying. But the dis-
tinction Socrates presents in reflecting on the status of his
mythos, addressed to a man with sense, should be no more
surprising than his separation of the pious, whose reward has
been described most beautifully, from the philosopher, whose
fate after death has been shrouded in silence.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Pharmakon
solely for the sake of his companions? Actually, we are not told
that it was Socrates himself who performed the deed. The very
fact that his head was covered is revealed, in any case, only in
retrospect, when Socrates uncovers himself-like the pain that
is revealed as pain only when release from it is experienced as
pleasure.
216 PHARMAKON
Socrates manifests this recovery when the numbness
reaches the organ of generation. He addresses to Crito at this
moment his last words: "To Asclepius we owe a cock;'' but
pay it and do not neglect it." Socrates marks his success in the
practice of dying by remembering the god of healing; he be-
lieves it necessary, apparently, to supplement the hymn to
Apollo he claims to have produced as a rite of purification. 30
Asclepius should be a model for the best physician, Socrates
argues on one occasion,' 1 since he was willing to heal those
who could recover and lead a normal life, but not those who
would go on living only with suffering or with constant
pampering. Socrates contrasts his own view, however, with
that of Pindar and the tragedians, who affirm that Asclepius,
though a son of Apollo, was bribed by gold to heal a man
already at the point of death. Asclepius, whom Socrates now
thinks of in his last words, seems, then, to have a double sig-
nificance. Does Socrates express his gratitude to the healing
god, who knows when it is no longer worth living, for his own
recovery from the disease of lifel 31 Or does Socrates, who an-
nounced his call of fate "as a tragic man would say," offer at
the last moment a bribe to the healing god to fight off the
approach of death-one last affirmation of the goodriess of
lifel 33
Whatever union of opposites Socrates is portrayed as expe-
riencing at his release from life, Plato has him express appre-
ciation for another recovery that is concurrent with the por-
trayal of that release. From Phaedo's narrative we know of one
case of illness-the cause of Plato's absence from the scene of
Socrates' death l59b); and the sign of recovery from that illness
is nothing but the Platonic dialogue itself, which has provided
this image of the dying Socrates. The pharmakon that Socrates
drinks is simultaneously a poison that brings his life to an end
and a remedy that cures a disease. But it is a different pharrna-
kon-that of the written word34-that truly fulfills the prac-
tice of dying, as a separation of logos from the living self. The
Platonic Socrates thus invests his dying words with an appro-
priate implication of gratitude-Thank god for Plato!
PHARMAKON 217
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
occupy space, but what is neither in heaven nor on earth has no being,
is, according to Plat0 S Timaeus, what "we say as it seeing in a dream"
1
CHAPTER FIVE
7. Cf Republic 472d-e.
8. It is, perhaps, for this reason that Socrates illustrates the
possibility of pure pleasure by referring to the sight of images, not of
living beings, but only of geometric figures \see Philebus 5lc1.
9. Do we know it, what it is (auto ho estln)?, Socrates asks,
where auto, referring to the equal itself, is simultaneously the direct
object of "know" and the subject of "what is" (cf. 75b6, dl; see David
Gallop, Plato Phaedo, pp. 119-20, 229). Cf. note 5, chapter 3.
10. On the controversy over whether this refers to different ob-
servers or to different relations in which the phenomena stand, and for
this translation, which is intended to preserve that ambiguity, see Gal-
lop, pp. 122-23, 220. See also the analysis of dlfferent interpretations
by K. W. Mills, "Plato's Phaedo 74b7-c6," Phronesis 11957):12.8-33.
11. For sticks and stones may be equal in length, for example,
but not weight (see Rrchard Haynes, "The form equality, as a set of
equals: Phaedo 74b-c," Phronesis 11964):20. The problem, then, with
which Socrates is concerned is not one consntuted by and correctable
by perception itself, as in a dispute among different observers. He :is
concerned, rather, as his later discussion of Opposites suggests, with
the apparently contradictory claim that phenomena, while remaining
the same, are both equal and unequal-a claim that would be cor-
rected by specifying the different relations in which these opposite
qualities are ascribed (cf. Parmenides 129c-cl.
12. 0 The equals themselves'' seems, then 1 to refer to the prop-
erties themselves that are equal and never seem unequal to anyone
(see Michael Wedin, "A uta ta Is a and the Argument at Phaedo 74b7-
c5," Phronesis 11977): 198-99). Cf. Socrates' account of the monads
under consideration in the arithmetic of the philosophers in contrast
with the unequal units counted in the arithmetic of the many (Phile-
bus 56d-el.
13. The formula suggests those "mathematicals" to wh1ch Plato,
according to Aristotle, assigned an intermediai)' status: insofar as
they are eternal and unchangeable1 the mathematicals are unlike the
phenomena, but insofar as they are a plurality of many alike, they are
unlike the eide (see Metaphysics 987bl4-18). Against this interpreta-
tion, J. M. Rist argues that he i.sotes, auto to ison, and auta ta isa are
simply three phrases Plato uses to describe the form of equal because
he felt no one of them to be entirely satrsfactory (see "Equals and
Intermediaries in Plato," Phrones1s !1964):31). To support this claim,
Rist contends that he trias. he idea t6n tri6n, and ta tria at Phaedo
240 NOTES TO PAGES 76-78
l 04a-e are three different ways of referring to the form threeness IP-
29). But three must be related to the triad just as whatever is to be two
must partic1pate in the dyad and whatever is to be one in the monad
(!Ole). If the equals themselves "bring forward" the idea of equahty to
any equal phenomena, like the dyad that "brings forward" the idea of
the even to any collection of two I lOS a), they would indeed seem to be
intermediary between 11 opposites in nature" and the things character-
Ized by them (cf. 102d-J 03b).
14. Self-predication would be entailed, then, as [. M. !list ob-
serves (p. 32), only by the equals themselves; cf. R. E. Allen, "Partici-
pation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues," Philosophical
Review (1960):150. It would be difficult to account for why Plato
introduced these various terms if one were to argue, as K. W. Mills
does, for example, that he failed to distinguish between them \"Plato's
Phaedo 74b7-c6," Phronesis (1958):49).
15. Cf. Socrates' account in the Cratylus of the name-givers
who, while whirling around and dizzy with confusion themselves,
mistakenly projected their own state onto the phenomena and laid
down names in accordance with their belief that all things are in
motion (439c).
16. Yet, if knowledge of the equal itself implied knowledge of its
opposite (d. Gallop, p. 130), why would it be necessary to have ac-
quired knowledge before birth of the greater and the smaller as well'
And since one thing can certainly be greater or smaller than another,
what would it mean to say that it falls short of the greater or the
smaller (see John Burnet, Plato's Phaedo, p. 58)' Cf. Socrates' attempt,
in the Philebus. to identify "the genos of the unlimited" by including
within it 11 the things that appear to us to become more and less," in
contrast to 11 the limit," to which the equal and equality belong l24e-
25b; but contrast 25d-e).
17. "The holy" takes the place here of health and strength in the
list Socrates presented to Simmias in his initial defense to illustrate
"the being, what each happens to be" (65d); cf. Socrates' description in
the myth of the fate after death of those found to have lived a holy life
(113d, 114b). The holy appears only one more time in the dialogue, in
conflict with the good: despite the fact that it may be better for the
philosopher to be dead, it is not holy to benefit himself (62a).
18. On the metaphor of stamping with a seal, see Philebus 26d;
Statesman 258c.
NOTES TO PAGES 78-84 241
19. Cf. for example, Crito SOc, Republlc 534d, Prot agoras 329a;
Gorgias 449b.
20. Cf. for example, Euthyphro Sd; Charmides J59a, Laches
l90e; Hippias Ma7ar 286d; Theaetetus 146c, Minos 3l3a.
21. For if we aheady possessed the answer, why would we engage
in inquiry at alllcf. Meno 80e}? Socrates identifies the dialectiCian, in
the Cratylus, as he who knows how to ask and answer 1390cj, but he
suggests the etymological derivation of heros not only hom erOs, but
also from er6tan ["questioning"t so that the heroes must have been
rhetoricians and dialecticians who knew not how to answer, but only
how to question (398dl.
22. Cf., for example, Meno 97e-98a, Gorgws 465a; Republic
534b; Theaetetus 202c, Statesman 286a.
23. Cf. Phaedrus 249b-c.
24. Cf. Anstotle Posterior Analytics 71 b6-8, 99b26-34.
25. See note 13, chapter 3.
26. Just as the first argument proves that the psyche continues to
exist after death in Hades, but not that it is imperishable, Olympiodo-
rus argues, the second argument proves that it exists for some time
before birth1 but not that it is ungenerated ~Commentary on the
Phaedo 11.2).
27. Simmias' fear that when the psyche is released from the
body, it will suffer corruptwn (diaphtheuesthai, 77b) echoes Cebes'
fear that when a man dies, his psyche suffers corruption and is de-
stroyed (diaphtheiietai te kaJ apolluiitai, 70a); both mterlocutors con-
clude their later obiections to the argument by express1ng their fear
that, at death, the psyche is destroyed iapollusthai, 86d, aud apoletai,
88b).
28. See 7ldl0-13 and 72a4-6, m contrast with 70c8-9, d3-4,
7ldl4-15, 7lel4-72a2, dl-3, d8-9.
29. On the various traditional enumeratiOns and divisions of the
arguments, see W. D. Geddes, The Phaedo of Plato. introduction, pp.
xviii-xix. See also note 1, chapter 8.
30. See Kenneth Darter's analysis of the relation between the
first and second arguments, wh1ch show different sides of the sepa-
rated soul as motive and wise; while the thJ.Id argument makes this
disparity explicit, Darter finds its reconciliation in the final argu-
ment, which defines soul as the bearer of the form "life" to the body
(Plato's Phaedo1 pp. 44-46~. But to take this as a reconcihation ignores
242 NOTES TO PAGES 85-90
the radical consequences of the transition from the first to the second
half of the dialogue: the relation of psyche to life in the final argument
in no way suggests the cognitive relation between the psyche and the
forms that is assumed in the first series of arguments.
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
Socrates' "l!UtobtOpaphy"
1followa.ng So[;rates' Silence,
the god to the city \Apology 30e-3lai. Compare the warning, how-
ever, that Socrates issues to his interlocutors before entering into his
radical proposals for the communization ol his "best city in speech"
(Republic 4SOd-451bl.
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
port of Plato's absence (59b) with his inab11ity to name the challenger
of Socrates argument.
R. See especially Statesman 262d-e. Cf. jacob Klem's analysis
of these most comprehensive eide of number, in Greek Mathematical
Thought and the Origm of Algebra. p. 57.
9. Socrates refers to each number that is odd "by nature" as a
singular entity !he trias, he pemptas)1 while he refers to each number
in "the other [heteros,\ series 1 ' as a collection \ta dua. ta tettara) and
says nothing about their being even <~by nature." This is unlikely to
reflect "no systematic distinction" (David Gallop, Plato Phaedo, p.
201); for if evenness is defined as division into two equal parts, and
oddness as division yielding a remainder of one indivisible unit, even-
ness would be common to numbers as well as to infinitely divisible
magnitudes, while oddness alone would be characteristic of discrete
and indivisible units that can be counted (see Klein, pp. 57-58). The
priority of the odd over the even IS suggested as well by the Pythago-
rean identification of the even w1th the infinite and the odd with the
limit (see Aristotle Physics 203a10-15). Aristotle refers to the Pla-
tonic notion of the dyad as he hetera phusis through which numbers
other than "the firse' can be generated as from a matrix (see Meta-
physics 987b33-988a1; cf. W. D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas, pp.
188-89). The Platonists clainl, Aristotle reports, that there is no
generation of odd numbers, implying that there is a generation of even
ones; he proceeds w1th an analysis of the construction of the first even
from the unequal, the great and small, when equalized \MetaphysJcs
!091a23-26).
l 0. Socrates introduces the word idea as a synonym, apparently,
for eidos; but the idea is always spoken of as being ''in" something or
excluded by something that has the opposite Idea m 11, although not
every idea is an opposite. Each reference to "idea" in this argument is
exemplified, furthermore, by mathematicals, either the odd or the
even, or the idea of three (104b9, d2, d6, d9, el, 105d!3). But contrast
the occurrences of "idea" in Socrates' myth (108d9, 109b51.
11. But cf. Hippws Ma1or 302a-b.
12. On the distinction between mathematical number, as a col-
lection of "associable and undifferentlated 11 unns, and eidetic num
ber, as an indivisible unit or a set of 11 inassociable and differentiated 11
umts, see especially MetaphysJcs !080b11-14, !080b37-1083a20,
1090b32-36. See the interpretation of eidetic number by Anders
Wedberg, in Plato's Philosophy of Mathematics. pp. 80-84, 116-22.
262 NOTES TO PAGES 169-170
13. Along with other evidence that David O'Brien offers to sup-
pan the identity of he trias with the idea of three is the fact that it
seems to he parallel to he duas and he monas, m wh1ch anything that
is to be two or one mustpanicipate (lOlc); see "The Last Argument of
Plato's Phaedo." Classical Quarterly 11967]:217-19. The only evi-
dence O'Brien considers to be against this interpretation is that he
trias is first introduced parallel to ta dua, etc.i but see note 9 above.
14. On the controversial readings resulting from the complicated
grammar of this passage, see Gallop, pp. 202-03, 235-36.
15. The term morphe, which is not used again in the dialogue,
was introduced in a consistent way at 103c5 to describe the opposite
eidos insofar as it represents the character of something that always
possesses it-for example, the heat in fire or the cold in snow.
16. Unlike the triad, R. D. Archer-Hind asserts, "the soul which
quickens the body is not the idea of soul, hut a particular soul, just as
the fever is a part1cular fever" {The Phaedo of Plato, pp. 115-16]. The
psyche, Aristotle maintains IDe anima 403bl4-191. or at least its
pathi: 1cf. 431 b2S-33], being inseparable from the body, does not have
the status of the mathematicals that are inseparable in being but
separable in thought.
17. But Socrates has conspicuously omitted snow, which would
seem incapable not only of defending itself against the approach of the
hot, but also of approaching something else to impose on it its own
character.
18. just as five will not admit the idea of the even, Socrates adds,
its double, ten-will not admit the idea of the odd. But in stressing the
mathematical operation by which an even number is produced as the
double of some odd number, Socrates suggests its simultaneous par
ticipation in the even and the odd. See the fragment assigned to Phi-
lolaus {DK 44BSJ, in which the even-odd appears as a third, derivative
form of number. Cf. also Parmenides l43e-l44a and the analysis by
Wedberg, p. 140; on its relation to Euclid's Elements (9.21-341, see
Thomas Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, vol. 1, pp. 71-72,
292. The idea of the whole, Socrates continues, would not be admitted
by the one-and-a-half and all such, or by the one-third and all such
(JOSh). As a mixed fraction, however, the former would seem to be
characterized, once again, by two opposites at once. Since, moreover,
the opposite of the whole should be the part, it is not surprising that
Socrates suddenly changes the pattern and does not add the comple-
mentary claim that no whole number could admit the idea of the part.
NOTESTOPAGES 171-172 263
If mathematical operations, as Socrates implies, present a threat to
the principle of exclusion of opposites, only the eidetic number could
guarantee the safety of logos.
19. Given thts progression, it is not surpnsing to find a debate as
to whether Plato recognized the distinctive character of relations.
That this is precisely the purpose of Phaedo 102b-d is the contention
of Hector-Neri Castaneda )see "Plato's Phaedo Theory of Relations,"
/ournal of PhilosophJcal Logic [1972[:467-801. But while Plato does
seem to be dealing with genuine puzzles about relational facts, this
passage cannot be isolated and, as Castaiieda insists, "be understood
from what it says" and ''not Interpreted in view of the final argument
for immortality" (see 11 Plato's Relations, Not Essences or Accidents,
at Phaedo l02b2-d2," Canadwn /ournal of Philosophy [1978[:52). It
is just that context, David Gallop maintains, that shows the contrast
between essential and accidental attributes to be Plato's primary con-
cern (see "Castaneda on Phaedo 102b-d," CanadJan /ournal of Phil-
osophy [19781:55). For that purpose Plato seems to have treated rela-
tional terms in the modem sense as a subclass of the larger group of
incomplete predicates (see David Gallop, "Relations in the Phaedo,"
Canadian fournal of Philosophy, supplementary volume 2, p. 1621.
The question, as Christopher Kirwan understands it, is whether the
exceptions Plato ~dmits to the principle forbidding compresence of
opposites include all nonessential contraries, all relative contraries,
or, as Kirwan maintains, only comparative contraries: Simmias can be
greater and smaller, but not simultaneously great and small (see
"Plato and Relativity," Phronesis (1974):123-27). But what exactly IS
contributed to the conclusion of the argument by that admission? Can
a man, who cannot be simultaneously ahve and dead, nevenheless be
more alive m one relation, more dead in another? Is it only the com-
parison with dying, and in particular with Socrates' dying, that reveals
what it means to have been alive?
20. The monad could be the cause of anything being one or of
any number being odd without itself being construed as a number.
Socrates just listed the even numbers, beginning with two, and the
odd, begrnning with three (104a-b); he asks, in one d15cussion, about
"number and the one" as if they were not the same [see Republic
524dl. One is not itself a number, Aristotle argues, but a principle of
numbers !Metaphysics l087b34-1088a8).
21. Cf. jacob Klein, A Commentary on Plato's Meno, pp. 142-
44.
264 NOTES TO PAGES 173-176
22. The Pythagoreans, according to Aristotle, identify one as
both, since it consists of the limit, which is odd, as well as the unlim-
ited, which is even (MetapbysJcs 986al7-211. Since the fragment as-
signed to Philolaus refers to the even-odd in the singular (DK 4485),
M. E. Hager argues that this characterizes only the one ("Philolaus on
the Even-Odd," Classical Review (19621:1-21. For an analysis of how
the monad could function as a cause of oddness in number without
itself being odd, see Wedberg, pp. 137-38; cf. Klein, Plato's Meno, pp.
142-44.
23. Cf. Nietzsche, Die Fri:ihliche Wissenschaft, book4, 340 (see
note 32, chapter 13).
24. Socrates' list of refined causes, consequently, does not re-
place his original list of saie ones: he offers no noncontradictory re-
fined cause of something being beautiful, greater or smaller, two or
one.
25. Socrates must now demonstrate, David O'Brien argues, that
soul excludes death in the new sense-that is, its own destruction
(olethrosj-whereas he has already demonstrated that it can survive
the passage from life to death in the old sense-that is, separation
from the body ("The Last Argument of Plato's Pbaedo," Classical
Quarterly (19681:981. But the first part of the last argument has dem-
onstrated t.hat psyche cannot admit death insofar as it is that which
animates a living body; it has not and could not have shown, conse-
quently, the ability of psyche to exist apart from the body.
26. This is just one example of a passage that fell into place
thanks to an msight of Seth Benardete.
27. A dead living being, Strata objects, is as impossible as dead
psyche \see Damascms Commentary on the Phaedo 1.4311. To over-
come this objection, Damascius postulates a distinction between the
life "brought forward," which is the opposite of death and exists in a
substratum-that is, the body-and the life "bringmg forward,"
which exists by itself and 1s identified with psyche 11.458-460). But
the distinction seems to be sufficiently accounted for by the differ-
ence between body as a neutral subject that can be bonded to either of
two opposites and psyche as a "refined cause" inseparably bonded to
one opposite.
28. Socrates should not be accused of unjustifiably transferring
the ascription of deathlessness from that which has psyche to psyche
itself, as David Keyt argues ("The Fallacies in Plato's Pbaedo 102a-
NOTES TO PAGES 176-178 265
107b," Phronesis 11963): 1711: for he can, on the bas>s of the preceding
argument, ascribe Ut:athlessness to that which is always the cause of
life, even if it is itself not necessarily characterized as liv1ng.
29. Only in the case of psyche, O'Brien argues] 1s it unnecessary
to add the qualification "whenever it is/' since in being always or
essentially athanatos, psyche cannot be or become dead ("The Last
Argument of Plato's Phaedo." pp. 229-311. But the impossibility of
psyche remaining what it is and being dead is not identical with the
impossibility of its ceasing to exist, hence the necess1ty of the supple
mentary argument to establish the premise that the immortal is im-
perishable lcf. Gallop, p. 216; Keyt, p. 171:. Cebes' cursory agreement
to that premise, O'Brien contends, is based on his assumption that
an6lethros means ' 1always atbanatos 11 \''The Last Argument of Plato's
Phaedo," p. 1031: but if he does make that assumpuon, he illustrates
the error of ignoring the distinction between "what'' something is and
''that 11 it is.
30. Since the alternative now at stake is that of withdrawal or
destruction, it is a demonstration of the indestructibility of psyche
that would seem to be required. The formulation of Socrates' question
calls attention, therefore, to the first appearance in the argument of
the term an61ethros, winch Cebes introduced with h1s demand for a
demonstration that the psyche is completely deathless and imperish-
able l88b; cf. 95b-c).
31. But the fact that the two cases are not formulated in pre-
cisely the same way-snow, for example, is nnhot lathermon), but fire
is uncoolable (apsukton), as Burnet remarks IPP 123-24)-may be
significant insofar as the pair constitute a model for the conclusion of
the argument.
32. Cf. especially Parmenides l56a-b where becommg lg,gnes-
thai) is defined as receiving an ousia, and being destroyed iappolus-
thai) as losing an ousia: in becoming one, being many is destroyed,
and vice versa.
33. To athanaton must mean, 0 1Brien argues, that which is
deathless, not deathlessness itself !"The Last Argument of Plato's
Phaedo,'' p. 207), for Socrates asks if it is also impenshable, although
he did not establish the imperishability of the essential qualities in
the previous examples. If, however, Socrates means that whatever is
deathless >s also imperishable, it is odd that he concludes not that the
psyche is imperishable, but rather, that it cannot be destroyed.
266 NOTES TO PAGES 180-183
34. The word afdion has not been rnenuoned before and will not
be mentioned again. Cf. Timaeus 29a, 37c-d, 40b; Philebus 66a; Re-
public 611 b.
35. But Cebes gives no argument to defend the inference from
the assumption that there must always be something existing to the
required claim that there must be something that always exists (see
Gallop, pp. 219-20).
36. The argument would have to demonstrate that psyche is es-
sentially characterized by existence, so that it would necessarily ex-
clude nonexistence. It would thus be shown to be a necessary being, of
the kind required as the object of the ontological argument for the
existence of God Id. O'Brien, "The Last Atgument of Plato's Phaedo,"
pp. 103-061. That Socrates does not succeed in this demonstration
seems to be Plato's indication of the impossibility of treating exis-
tence as a predicate that, if denied, would contradict the necessary
characterization of a subject (d. Kant's criticism of the ontological
argument, Critique of Pure Reason, B62l-629).
37. The model for this transformation is the problem of the
"cause" of two:
the dyad the idea of the even &. the idea of the odd
(safe answer! !opposites that exclude each other!
t t t
addaion 11+11 & div1sion 0-'-2)
!opposite caust of one .esulti t
the dyad
t
Ithe monad!
l<efincd cau'Csl
t t
coming back to ltfe & dymg
1union with body) jseparationl
lopposttes generated from each other)
t
psyche
l<efincd caus"l t
lpmson?)
t
What is the cause of the
cychcal genesis of psvche
What is the cause of
life in the bodv1
(dead body)
NOTES TO PAGES 184-190 267
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 281
283
284 INDEX
C:e.hes, 19,2.8-186 passim E1dos. B8n2; human, 69, 72, 108,
Cicero, 223nl0, 226nl5, 273nl9 122; of visible and invtsible, ~1.}-
City: and context of Socrates' death, 90; of harmony, 122; as cause,
17, 22, 103, 210; as philosopher's 148-49, 157, 158; m rdatton to
pnson, 22, 96-97, 195 pragmara. 156, 159-60, 161. 164,
Coroparauves, 57-58, 116, 127,150- 184; of life, !Rl, 183, 185; of
51, 175 culor, 196
Contradiction, 11, 12, 110, 125; be- Eleven, the, 25, 103, 225n3, servant
tween first and last arguments, of, 25, 35, 50, 103, 210-12
15, 53-54, 67, 183, 185, and pnn- Equality, 74; of equal phenomena,
ciple of noncontradiction, 132-33, 73-78; and the equal itself, 73-
138; fear of, 151-54, protecuon 78, 88, 148; of the equals them-
against, 155, 163, 174 selves, 74-78
Courage, 47-48, 152, 205 Eros. 45-46, 72, 76
Critu, 8, 19, 23-25, 28, 32, 35, 114,
161, 207-17 passim Farewell(chanein), 35, 38, 41, 96,
204,211
Damascius, 243nnl0, 11, 250nn9, Fever, 111-13
10, 11, 2Sin22, 264n27, 274n24 Fire, 166-67, 170-72, 178, 179
Davis, Michael, 22ln24, 253n5 Form(s), 2. See also Eidos
Death: as separatwn of psyche and frank, Erich, 226nl6
body, 2, 10, 39-40, 44, 106, 134, Friedliinder, Paul, 228n2, 252n 1
173-74, 216; double interpreta-
non of, 6, 8, 31 38, 45, 174: fear
1
Gadamer, Hans Georg, 237n40,
of, 10, 19, 45, 85, 87, 93, 99-100, 260n7
102, 115, 151, 21.~; as destruction Gaiser, Konrad, 218nl, 226nl7,
of psyche, 11, 51, 106, 108, 122, 260n3
'134, 175, 178; desue for, 12, 21, Gallop, Davtd, l33n l 0, 236n30,
30-32, 34, 38, 49, 93, superiority 239nn9, 10, 250n6, 263nl9
to life, 30-32, 141. See also Prac- Geddes, W. De, 227n21
tice of dying and being dead Genesis. of living hom dead, 55, 58,
Dialogue: interpretation of, l, 218nl; 59, 61, 62, 65-67, 83, 183; of op-
argument and action of, 4-7, 25, posues from each other, 55-67,
146-47, 210; structure of, 5, 6, 10- 164-65, 179, 185; paued pro-
13,23, 112, 159, 185, 247nl, reader cesses of, 58-59; unendmg cycle
of. 5, 6, 22, 50, 165, 180; na.nated, 7, of, 63~6 7, 190; and recollection,
14-16, 159, 222nl 79
Disputatious, the, 116, 118, 119, God\s), 165, 181, 213, 214, as
153-54, 157-58, 163, 174 masters, 9, 12, 33, 34; will of, 11,
Darter, Kenneth, 219-20n12, 241- 27-28; dwell wnh purified, 49,
42n30, 256n36, 267n40 94-96, 98, 203
Dream. 8, 24, 28 Gooch, P. W., 235n20
Drug. See PharmlJkon Good, 78, 81, 149, 157; as cosmo-
Dyad, 10-13. 27-28, 13 7 -38, 153, logical princ1ple, 65, 140-41, 144,
266n37 185, 193. See also Ltfe: goodness
of; Teleology
Earth, 140-44, 191-203 passim Guthne, W. K C., 226n16. 249n2
Echecrates, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22,
23, 114-15, 159, 213 Hackfortb, R., 228-29n4, 234nll,
Eckstein, Jerome, 219n12, 222n4 236n28
INDEX 285
221n2..~. 233n4: H1ppias lvfaior. 76. 183, 185-86; cxi&tence oi, be-
234n14, 256n38, Laws. 224nl8, fore birth, 55-56, 69, 79, 60-83,
268nl0, 270-7ln46, 171nn4'7, 48, 108,123,134, 1:;6; image"nf,98
274n26i Lysis, 223nl2, 273- 105, 108; no idea of, 106. 169,
74n20; Meno. 216nl7, 233n4; Par- 182. See also Immortality
menides. 222nl. 265n.32; Phae- Purification: Socratic ritua-l of. 8, 9,
drus. 237n39; Ph1lebus, 225onn7, 20, 23. 29, 176; Athenian ritual of,
10, 23ln29, 239n8, 240nl6, 8, 20. 23: double Interpretation of,
274n27, Protagoras. 23an4: Re- 13, 63, 94: vs. unpurified, 49. 190,
public, 22Snl0, 226nP, 230nl8, 191, 200-01; of body, 206
232n39, 250n1 l, 253nnl4, 16, Pythagorcans, 7, 22an7, 228n33,
255n31, 260n2, 268nn16, 17, 247n2
269nn23, 25, 274n25; Sophist.
230nl5, 256n35, 259n52. 272n2,
Recollection, 69-82 passim, 86, 110,
Statesman. 232n35, 259n50; SJm- 123-26
posmm, 22ln21, 222nl, 226nF,
Relations, 58, lSI, 162, 171, 263nl9
24Snl0, 246nl9, 273n20, 274-
Reynen, Hans, 227n21, 232n36
75n29; Theaetetus. 222nl,
Rtst, ). M., 239nB, 240n14
231 n24, 234n 18, 259n54, Ti-
Robinson, Richard, 255-S6n33,
maeus. 232-33n2. 234nl5 . 249n2, 258n47
253n15, 269n28, 271-7'2n1
Rosen, Stanley, 229n11
Pleasure and pain: union of, .:,, 11-
12, 18-19, 23, 25-28, 102, 107,
113, 138; release from, 21, 2.3, 98, Sayre, Kenneth, 257-58n45, 258-
118, 214; in demotic virtue, 47- 59n48
48 Sch1ciermacher, Friedrich, 218nl,
Practice of dying and being dead: as 220nl4, 222-23n~ 246-47n20
separation of psyche. 2. 9; as sepa- Seal, 78, 88, 240n18
ration of logos, 6-7, 13, 121; phi- Second sailing, 10, 12, 104, 144, 148,
losophy as, ,'F-38, 94-96 l5R, 164, 186, 197
Pragma: and the beings, 10, 42, 145; Self: as unny of psyche and body, 7,
as opposites generated from each 15, 203; and fear of death, 9, 10,
other, 57-58, 164-65, 1&.3; un 44, 100, identified w1th psyche.
soundness of, 113, 119,. 158, 197; 43, 161: Interest of, 53 119-21,
1
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