Plato's "Phaidon" describes the events on the day of Socrates' death. Unlike the trial writings Apology and Kriton, however, this is not to be classified as a historical document, which is primarily concerned with a realistic reproduction. This is indicated on the one hand by the fact that the narrator states that he himself was not present on the day of his death, and on the other hand by the literary form chosen, in which a spatial and temporal distance is established from the events. Plato's main concern in Phaidon is rather to prove the immortality of the soul. In order to provide this proof, he has Socrates present four proofs of immortality, which will be the subject of this work. In these proofs, Plato makes use of his central philosophical concepts: the doctrine of ideas and the doctrine of recollection.
Table of contents
1 Introductory
2 The first proof of immortality of the soul (70d – 72e)
2.1. The need to arise from opposites
2.2 The need for cyclical regeneration
3 The Second Proof of Immortality of the Soul (72e-77a)
4 The Third Proof of The Soul's Immortality (77b-84b)
5 The fourth proof of the soul's immortality (103c-107b)
6 Summary and outlook
7 Bibliography
1 Introductory
Plato's Phaidon describes the events on the day of Socrates' death. Unlike the process writings Apologie and Kriton, however, this cannot be classified as a historical document, which is primarily about a realistic reproduction. This is supported, on the one hand, by the fact that Plato has the narrator say that he himself was not present on the day of his death, and on the other hand by the chosen literary form, in which a spatial and temporal distance to the events is built up.1 Plato's main concern in phaidon is rather the proof of the immortality of the soul. In order to provide this, he has Socrates cite four proofs of immortality, which are to be the subject of this work. In these proofs, Plato makes use of his central philosophical concepts: the doctrine of ideas and the doctrine of recollection. Here he goes strongly beyond the Socratic teachings, which in turn speaks for a later date of writing of the Phaidon.2
Socrates is visited on the day of his execution by several friends and also strangers in prison. Among them are Simmias and Kebes, two sympathizers of the Pythagorean school3 and Socrates' main interlocutor in dialogue. Despite his impending execution, Socrates seems happy.4 To the incredulous amazement that he hereby evokes among his visitors, he has a surprising answer: "Namely, those who deal with philosophy in the right way may well, without the others noticing it, strive for nothing else but to die and be dead."5 As a reason for this, he cites that the endeavor of every true philosopher is to know the true. But pure knowledge of truth is only possible through the soul. As long as this is in the body, the knowledge is complicated or clouded by him. Accordingly, death must be striven for by the philosopher as a lover of wisdom, since it represents the separation of body and soul.6 Kebe's listener admits these remarks to Socrates, but he has doubts about the immortality of the soul and wonders "whether it is no longer anywhere, when it is separated from the body, but persives and persthes on those days".7. In order to dispel these doubts, Socrates tries in the following to show by means of four proofs that the soul is immortal. These proofs are introduced individually in the following chapters and checked for their validity.
2 The first proof of immortality of the soul (70d – 72e)
At the beginning of the first proof of immortality, Plato ties in with Orphic-Pythagorean ideas8 by recalling an "old speech" according to which the souls are in the underworld after death and are reborn from there.9 The structure of the proof consists of two parts. On the one hand, the necessity of arising from opposites is demonstrated, on the other hand, the necessity of a cyclical regeneration or renewal.10 Both parts of the evidence are now to be explained individually and critically questioned.
2.1. The need to arise from opposites
To prove that an emergence from the opposite is necessary, Socrates first presents two premises, for which he assures himself of the consent of the listeners. His first premise is that all that which has an opposite necessarily arises from that opposite.11 According to Socrates, this emergence from the opposite applies not only to all living beings, but to everything that arises at all.12 Socrates illustrates this principle with a few pairs of terms such as beautiful/ugly, big/small or just/unjust. After ensuring that his dialogue partners acknowledge the validity of the principle, he proceeds to his second premise.13 This second premise states that between opposites of the above kind a "twofold becoming"14 takes place, which takes place from one half of an opposing pair to the other half and can take place in both directions. Thus, in the larger and smaller, there are processes of growth and decrease, through which the other arises from the one.15 To complete his argument, Socrates now applies these two premises to the relationship between life and death. At the beginning, Socrates again assures himself of the agreement of his listeners that life and death also belong to the opposing couples of whom there was previously talk and therefore both premises also apply to their relationship.16 Socrates identifies the processes of becoming between the opposites established in the second premise in relation to life and death as dying and resurgent and thus comes to the conclusion that the dead arises from the living, the living from the dead.17 With this last step, Socrates has succeeded in providing sufficient proof that "the souls of the deceased must be somewhere, from where they become alive again".18 and do not pass away with the death of the body.
Socrates' reasoning is very precisely and clearly structured. However, some weak points of the argument can be identified. In particular, the first premise, the "principle of arising from the opposite" is very susceptible to criticism. First of all, it should be noted that only the first pairs of terms that Plato cites to explain the principle are real opposites, in the following he does not use contrary opposites, but comparatives.19 However, this use of comparatives does not weaken the argument20, but rather facilitates the proof of the validity of the argument. If there is also a third, middle or neutral state between absolutely polar opposites, a tertium quid, this is omitted in comparative states21. So it is easy to show that something that becomes weaker must necessarily have been stronger before, whereas something that becomes strong must not have been weak before.22 Whether the contrary state coincides with the adversarial one would therefore have to be examined in each individual case. In the general form in which Plato presents it here, the principle of opposites is invalid.23 It would therefore have to be examined whether such a tertium quid is present for life and death. If its existence were affirmed, Plato's reasoning would be invalid.24
[...]
1 Frede, p. 2.
2 Frede, p. 4.
3 Gadamer, p.189.
4 Plato, Phaidon, 58e.
5 Plato, Phaidon, 64a.
6 Plato, Phaidon, 66b-67b.
7 Plato, Phaidon, 70a.
8 Frede, Platos, p.38.
9 Plato, Phaidon, 70c.
10 Frede, Platons, p.39.
11 Plato, Phaidon, 71a.
12 Plato, Phaidon, 70d.
13 Plato, Phaidon, 70d – 71a.
14 Plato, Phaidon, 71a.
15 Plato, Phaidon, 71b.
16 Plato, Phaidon, 71c.
17 Plato, Phaidon, 71d – 72a.
18 Plato, Phaidon, 72a.
19 Frede, p.40.
20 Hackforth, p.64.
21 Frede, p.40 – 41..
22 Gallop, p.108.
23 Frede, p.41.
24 Frede, pp. 42 – 43.
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