15 April 2023
Ancient Traditions
Socrates: “There is an ancient tradition, which we remember, that they [people in general] go there [to the afterlife] from here and come back here again and are born from the dead.”
(Plato, Phaedo, Translated by Harold North Fowler, Plato I, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, page 243, 70C, ISBN: 0674990404)
Socrates: “. . . I have heard from wise men and women who told of things divine –”
(Plato, Meno, Translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Plato: Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1924, page 301, 81A-B, ISBN: 9780674991835)
1. The quote from Phaedo is part of a response given by Socrates to Cebes, one of Socrates’s students, who has just said that he, Cebes, would like more discussion and more proof regarding rebirth than Socrates has offered up to that point in the dialogue. Socrates makes this statement in passing, but does not dwell on what ‘ancient’ tradition is being referenced.
2. I think Socrates mentions this ‘ancient tradition’ to suggest to Cebes, and the others who are attending Socrates during his last hours, that the idea of rebirth is not some eccentric teaching that Socrates has come up with, or even conjured, due to the dire situation Socrates finds himself in (as an aside, Socrates does not find it dire, but his students do). Socrates is quietly reminding Cebes that what Socrates is teaching has a long heritage, that many wise people have held these views in the past.
3. This appeal to the past that Socrates offers in a casual way is one that would carry weight in most societies, but not in modernity, the society we live in at present. In traditional societies that past was understood to be source of wisdom, experience, as part of the heritage of the present. In our current cultural situation, the past is seen as an obstacle to progress that must be overcome. This means that the past should be disposed of as it has no value to those who think that material perfection will be achieved only in a future that will appear only when the past and its influences are removed.
4. Neither the quote from Phaedo, nor the quote from Meno, specifically mention the ‘ancient tradition’ or the affiliation of the priests, priestesses, and poets that is the source of the idea of rebirth. In a commentary on Phaedo by R. Hackforth, the footnote to this quote argues for an Orphic origin, “Plato often appeals to ‘ancient doctrine’, especially in his latest dialogue, the Laws. It is not always Orphic doctrine that is so described . . . But in the present case it probably is; the doctrine of rebirth of the soul has already been referred to at Meno 81A [quoted above] in language plainly suggestive of Orphism, though it is not there called ancient, as it is here [in Phaedo] . . .” (R. Hackforth, Plato’s Phaedo, page 59)
5. I don’t know much about Orphism in Greece and the ancient Classical world. What I have read simply mentions in passing that Orphism is a source for the idea of rebirth in the Classical World, but does not go into details. I understand that Orphism was a mystery tradition, which means that its adherents took vows to not reveal to outsiders certain teachings, and perhaps ceremonies, that were only granted to initiates. There were a lot of mystery traditions in the Classical World in general and in ancient Greece in particular. If Socrates means, when he says that he ‘heard from’ priests and priestesses about these teachings that may imply that Socrates was an initiate of an Orphic, or Orphic-related mystery tradition.
6. Another ancient tradition that Socrates may be pointing to is Pythagoreanism. Phaedo is relating the last hours of Socrates to Echecrates of Phlius, where the dialogue takes place. Echecrates was a Pythagorean. It is possible that Echecrates was a student of the well-known Pythagorean Philolaus, if the reference in Diogenes Laertius is to the same person. The Pythagoreans also held to the idea of rebirth and they connected rebirth to their vegetarianism.
Echecrates was not present at the death of Socrates, but asks Phaedo for an account because Echecrates has an interest in Socrates and the events that happened in Athens. Echecrates knows about them, but only in a general way and wants Phaedo to fill in the details.
The quote ‘ancient teaching’ may be a way for Plato to condense what otherwise would be a lengthy sidebar on the sources of this ‘ancient teaching’; a kind of synecdoche. My feeling is that all of this, and likely more, is embedded in this passing reference. For us moderns, it is sufficient to remember that the idea of rebirth was already an ancient teaching when Plato received it from his teacher, Socrates.
7. I think I’ve mentioned before, in another post, that when I was studying Plato in University they never mentioned rebirth with regards to Plato and Platonism. The quotes above, and other references to rebirth in Plato and subsequent Platonists, were simply passed over.
These days this reminds me of the way that rebirth in western Buddhism is similarly sidelined. It is kind of startling the ease with which western Buddhists simply ignore the teaching of rebirth, but there it is.
8. The idea of rebirth clashes with core assumptions of modernity in ways that no other ancient view that I know of does. Rebirth implies the existence of the immaterial soul, implies that not all things can be reduced to material factors, suggests that there exist domains that are transcendental to materiality, and further suggests that our actions have ethical consequences for us either in this life or in future lives. For many people who are trapped in modernity, all of this is a big challenge.
But the idea of rebirth in Platonism is also a great opportunity. For those of us in the West, it is a reminder of how much wisdom has been lost and how much we need to recover.
It may be interesting to note that the strong philosophical attempt to raise the idea of progress and discarding of the past to the level of modern gospel, logical positivism (itself based in part on the 19th century positivist movement), has been thoroughly abandoned by philosophers. Culture in general doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo that, at this point anyway, the common assumption of progress has no consistent basis.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes hear of contemporary thinkers who still have a belief in progress; though they are aware that the idea has been challenged. Most of the ones that I hear of are materialists who tend to follow Richard Dawkins and, perhaps, Sam Harris. But you are right, the situation is very different today than it was, say, 50 years ago when I was in college.
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