Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 21

1 August 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 21

Continuing with my notes and comments on Phaedo; I am using the Harold North Fowler translation published by the Loeb Classical Library.

“’Now if we had acquired that knowledge before we were born, and were born with it, we knew before we were born and at the moment of birth not only the equal and the greater and the less, but all such abstractions?  For our present argument is no more concerned with the equal than with absolute beauty and the absolute good and the just and the holy, and, in short, with all those things which we stamp with the seal “absolute” in our dialectic process of questions and answers; so that we must necessarily have acquired knowledge of all these before our birth.’

“’That is true.’

“’And if after acquiring it we have not, in each case, forgotten it, we must always be born knowing these things, and must know them throughout our life; for to know is to have acquired knowledge and to have retained it without losing it and the loss of knowledge is just what we mean when we speak of forgetting, is it not, Simmias?’

“’Certainly, Socrates,’ said he.

“’But, I suppose, if we acquired knowledge before we were born and lost it at birth, but afterwards by the use of our senses regained the knowledge which we had previously possessed, would not the process which we call learning really be recovering knowledge which is our own?  And should we be right in calling this recollection?’

“’Assuredly.’

“’For we found that it is possible, on perceiving a thing by the sight or the hearing or any other sense, to call to mind from that perception another thing which had been forgotten, which was associated with the thing perceived, whether like it or unlike it; so that, as I said, one of the two things is true, either we are all born knowing these things and know them all our lives, or afterwards, those who are said to learn merely remember and learning would then be recollection.’

“’This is certainly true, Socrates.’

“’Which then do you choose, Simmias?  Were we born with the knowledge, or do we recollect afterwards things of which we had acquired knowledge before our birth?’

“’I cannot choose at this moment, Socrates.’

“’How about this question?  You can choose and you have some opinion about it; When a man knows, can he give an account of what he knows or not?’

“’Certainly he can, Socrates.’

“’And do you think that everybody can give an account of the matter about which we have just been talking?’

“’I wish they might,’ said Simmias; ‘but on the contrary I fear that tomorrow, at this time, there will be no longer any man living who is able to do so properly.’

“’Then, Simmias, you do not thin all men know these things?’

“’By no means.’

“’Then they recollect the things they once learned?’

“’Necessarily.’

“’When did our souls acquire the knowledge of them?  Surely not after we were born as human beings.’

“’Certainly not.’

“’Then previously.’

“’Yes.’

“’Then, Simmias, the souls existed previously. Before they were in human form, apart from bodies, and they had intelligence.’

“’Unless, Socrates, we acquire these ideas at the moment of birth; for that time still remains.’

“’Very well, my friend.  But at what other time do we lose them?  For we are surely not born with them, as we just now agreed.  Do we lose them at the moment when we receive them, or have you some other time to suggest?’

“’None whatever, Socrates.  I did not notice that I was talking nonsense.’

“’Then, Simmias,’ said he, ‘is this the state of the case?  If, as we are always saying, the beautiful exists, and the good, and every essence of that kind, and if we refer all our sensations to these, which we find existed previously and are now ours, and compare our sensations with these, is it not a necessary inference that just as these abstractions exist, so our souls existed before we were born; and if these abstractions do not exist, our argument is of no force?  Is this the case, and is it equally certain that provided these things exist our souls also existed before we were born, and that if these do not exist, neither did our souls?’

“’Socrates, it seems to be that there is absolutely the same certainty, and our argument comes to the excellent conclusion that our soul existed before we were born, and that the essence of which you speak likewise exists.  For there is nothing so clear to me as this, that all such things, the beautiful, the good, and all the others of which you were speaking just now, have a most real existence.  And I think the proof is sufficient.’”

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 263 – 269)

1.  “Were we born with the knowledge, or do we recollect afterwards things of which we had acquired knowledge before our birth?”

I understand this discussion as an effort by Socrates to present a more precise understanding of the soul’s understanding.  I look at it this way: is the knowledge of things like equality, beauty, etc., an innate structure of the human mind, or is it knowledge that is learned by the soul between lives?  (By inference this knowledge would be learned in the noetic realm.) 

The first option, that this kind of knowledge is part of the innate structure of the human mind, is, to take a modern example, a Kantian view of how this knowledge comes about.  Kantian was an idealist, but I think this way of looking at this kind of knowledge is also agreeable to a materialist interpretation; meaning that knowledge of the good and the beautiful is an epiphenomenon of the structure of the human brain and is therefore, from a reductionist perspective, a material reality. 

Whether idealist or materialist, the view of this kind of transcendental knowledge is contrasted with the Platonist view that his knowledge is acquired by the soul between lives, and then recollected if the soul has the opportunity to recollect such realities, due to good karmic conditions.

2.  “. . . is it not a necessary inference that just as these abstractions (the good, the beautiful – my addition) exist, so our souls existed before we were born.”

In what sense is this a ‘necessary’ inference?  I think the necessity lies in the view Socrates has of the soul.  First, like abstractions such as the good and the beautiful, the soul is immaterial.  It is only an immaterial reality, or function, like the soul that could apprehend immaterial noetic realities such as the good and the beautiful.  This is similar to the way certain things are perceived by the eye and other things are perceived by the ear.  The soul perceives immaterial realities because it is suited for that kind of perception; it is suited for that kind of perception because the soul itself is immaterial.  The eye can learn about things illuminated by light, the ear can learn about sonic objects, and the soul learns about the noetic; transcendental immaterial realities.

Second, it is ‘necessary’ in the sense that the notes of a well-written piece of music follow each other with a sense of ‘necessity.’  Sometimes people will remark that an exceptional piece of music seems to have a feeling of inevitability about it; meaning that each note seems to be placed in just the right place.  In a similar way, there is a feeling of inevitability, or the necessary, in the argument the Socrates is presenting.

3.  Notice that Socrates consistently uses as examples of abstract noetic realities the good and the beautiful.  I take these references as pointing beyond the noetic to the One itself because the One is also frequently referred to as the Good.  The beautiful is usually considered a noetic reality; and of course it is.  But I suggest that the paring of the Good and the One by Socrates suggests that there is that which is beautiful that transcends the noetic and stands beside the Good and the One.  This is the source of all that is beautiful, including all that is beautiful in the noetic, just as the One is the source of unity in the noetic, and the Good is the source of the benign nature of the noetic.