Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 27

27 August 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 27

“’Good,’ said Simmias.  ‘I will tell you my difficulty, and then Cebes in turn will say why he does not agree to all you have said.  I think, Socrates, as perhaps you do yourself, that it is either impossible or very difficult to acquire clear knowledge about these matters in this life.  And yet he is a weakling who does not test in every way what is said about them and persevere until he is worn out by studying them on every side.  For he must do one of two things; either he must learn or discover the truth about these matters, or if that is impossible, he must take whatever human doctrine is best and hardest to disprove and, embarking upon it as upon a raft, sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers, unless he can sail upon some stronger vessel, some divine revelation, and make his voyage more safely and securely.  And so now I am not ashamed to ask questions, since you encourage me to do so, and I shall not have to blame myself hereafter for not saying now what I think.  For, Socrates, when I examine what has been said, either alone or with Cebes, it does not seem quite satisfactory.’

“And Socrates replied: ‘Perhaps, my friend, you are right.  But tell me in what respect it is not satisfactory.’

“’In this,’ said he, ‘that one might use the same argument about harmony and a lyre with its strings.  One might say that the harmony is invisible and incorporeal, and very beautiful and divine in the well attuned lyre, but the lyre itself and its strings are bodies, and corporeal and composite and earthy and akin to that which is mortal.  Now if someone shatters the lyre or cuts and breaks the strings, what if he should maintain by the same argument you employed, that the harmony could not have perished and must still exist?  For there would be no possibility that the lyre and its strings, which are of mortal nature, still exist after the strings are broken, and the harmony, which is related and akin to the divine and the immortal, perish before that which is mortal.  He would say that the harmony must still exist somewhere, and that the wood and the strings must rot away before anything could happen to it.  And I fancy, Socrates, that it must have occurred to your own mind that we believe the soul to be something after this fashion; that our body is strung and held together by heat, cold, moisture, dryness, and the like, and the soul is a mixture and a harmony of these same elements, when they are well and properly mixed.  Now if the soul is a harmony, it is clear that when the body is too much relaxed or is too tightly strung by diseases or other ills, the soul must of necessity perish, no matter how divine it is, like other harmonies in sounds and in all the works of artists, and the remains of each body will endure a long time until they are burnt or decayed.  Now what shall we say to this argument, if anyone claims that the soul, being a mixture of the elements of the body, is the first to perish in what is called death?’

“Then Socrates, looking keenly at us, as he often used to do, smiled and said: ‘Simmias raises a fair objection.  Now if any of you is readier than I, why does he not reply to him?  For he seems to score a good point.  However, I think before replying to him we ought to hear what fault our friend Cebes finds with our argument, that we may take time to consider what to say, and then when we have heard them we can either agree with them, if they seem to strike the proper note, or, if they do not, we can proceed to argue in defence of our reasoning.  Come, Cebes,’ said he, ‘tell us what it was that troubled you.’

“’Well, I will tell you,’ said Cebes.  ‘The argument seems to me to be just where it was, and to be still open to the objection I made before.  For I do not deny that it has been very cleverly, and, if I may say so, conclusively shown that the soul existed before it entered into this bodily form, but it does not seem to me proved that it will still exist when we are dead.  I do not agree with Simmias’ objection, that the soul is not stronger and more lasting than the body, for I think it is far superior in all such respects.  “Why then, the argument might say, “do you still disbelieve, when you see that after a man dies the weaker part still exists?  Do you not think the stronger part must necessarily be preserved during the same length of time?”  Now see if my reply to this has any sense.  I think I may, like Simmias, best express myself in a figure.  It seems to me that it is much as if one should say about an old weaver who had died, that the man had not perished but was safe and sound somewhere, and should offer as a proof of this the fact that the cloak which the man had woven and used to wear was still whole and had not perished.  Then if anyone did not believe him, he would ask which lasts, longer, a man or a cloak that is in use and wear, and when the answer was given that a man lasts much longer, he should think it had been proved beyond a doubt that the man was safe, because that which was less lasting had not perished.’

“’But I do not think he is right, Simmias, and I ask you especially to notice what I say.  Anyone can understand that a man who says this is talking nonsense.  For the weaver in question wove and wore out many such cloaks and lasted longer than they, though they were many, but perished, I suppose, before the last one.  Yet a man is not feebler or weaker than a cloak on that account at all.  And I think the same figure would apply to the soul and the body and it would be quite appropriate to say in like manner about them, that the soul lasts a long time, but the body lasts a shorter time and is weaker.  And one might go on to say that each soul wears out many bodies, especially if the man lives many years.  For if the body is constantly changing and being destroyed while the man still lives, and the soul is always weaving anew that which wears out, then when the soul perishes it must necessarily have on its last garment, and this only will survive it, and when the soul has perished, then the body will at once show its natural weakness and will quickly disappear in decay.  And so we are not yet justified in feeling sure, on the strength of this argument, that our souls will still exist somewhere after we are dead.  For if one were to grant even more to a man who uses your argument, Socrates, and allow not only that our souls existed before we were born, but also that there is nothing to prevent some of them from continuing to exist and from being born and dying again many times after we are dead, because the soul is naturally so strong that it can endure repeated births, -- even allowing this, one might not grant that it does not suffer by its many births and does not finally perish altogether in one of its deaths.  But he might say that no one knows beforehand the particular death and the particular dissolution of the body which brings destruction to the soul, for none of us can perceive that.  Now if this is the case, anyone who feels confident about death has a foolish confidence, unless he can show that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable.  Otherwise a man who is about to die must always fear that his soul will perish utterly in the impending dissolution of the body.’”

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 301-305, 86D-88B)

1.  Simmias introduces this part of the discussion by observing that the issue at hand, the nature of the soul and the question of the soul’s immortality, is very difficult and either one must discover the truth about these questions, or lean on the best theory one can find and use that best theory as a kind of raft through life.  Part of the difficulty, I think, for Simmias is that he wants a particular kind of certainty.  The description Simmias gives of our situation can be applied to very many questions in a human life, including very mundane things like what is the best exercise regime, what is the best sleeping schedule, how best to form and keep friendships, weather one should own a house or rent, and so forth.  Of course this applies to philosophical issues as well such as what are the best ethical commitments, what is the nature of being, how do we best cultivate virtue, how do we know that something is true, and so forth.  In the mundane series of questions, it does not normally disturb people that there are difficulties in responding to them; but in the realm of philosophy there is a kind of presumption that the answer should be easily accessible and discerned.  I suspect that Simmias is one of those people who subconsciously demands that philosophical investigations be accessible in a direct and plain manner; but the most significant philosophical issues are subtle; in addition they deal with what Socrates calls the ‘invisible,’ meaning the non-sensory domains. 

The thing about the Way of Philosophy is that it often takes a long time to understand what someone like Plato or Plotinus is saying, what they are recommending, and the way of life that they advocate for.  When I say ‘a long time’ I mean years, or even decades.  In my own case it has taken a lot of reading, contemplation, and very importantly, rereading, to get a sense of a secure understanding.  I don’t think I am exceptional in this regard.

2.  Socrates asks Simmias why he does not find his presentation satisfactory and Simmias responds with a remarkably modern perspective.  Basically, Simmias understands the soul as an epiphenomenon of the body, just as modern materialists see consciousness as an epiphenomenon of the body.  That is to say, the soul can be reduced to bodily components just as the mind can be reduced to bodily components. 

From a Platonist perspective the lyre is an instantiation of a form, or several forms, the basic one being Beauty as such.  Just as the number three exists before there are three apples to instantiate three, so also three remains existent, because it is a form, when the three apples rot away.  In the third hypostasis of becoming and begoning all things will vanish because this is the realm of impermanence and change.  But there could not be a lyre without the existence of the One which grants unity to all things, and there could not be a sense of a correctly tuned lyre without the form of Beauty guiding the musician. 

Lyres do not disappear when a single lyre is broken.  And people do not disappear when their body can no longer sustain life.

3.  Both Simmias and Cebes seem to be unable, at this point in their relationship with Socrates, to weave together the various approaches that Socrates has taken.  Cebes in particular seems to be unable to integrate the arguments for the soul’s after-death survival that are based on the cyclic nature of the third hypostasis; that is why Cebes can accept that the soul exists before birth but not comprehend how the full context of Socrates’s presentation also applies to the soul’s survival after death.

I’m not criticizing Cebes (or Simmias).  If I look back on my long journey on the Platonist Way I can recall also being puzzled, baffled, and bewildered at times.  Talking to Socrates about questions like this resembles talking to an advanced physicist about issues in physics when you have only a bit of understanding of the topic.  Or it is like listening to some music that comes from a culture you are unfamiliar with, that uses unfamiliar scales and intervals, and complex rhythms you have never heard before.  In such a situation the music may sound incoherent.  But if you persist, if you, perhaps, find a short passage of the music attractive, you can build on that and gradually the music will be clear and available to one’s ear. 

In a similar way, the various views (logoi) put forth by Socrates are each in themselves subtle and require engagement with them and contemplation of them.  And putting them altogether, and seeing how they work as a whole, is yet another challenge.  Fortunately, we have a record of a guide as to how all of this works, its meaning, and the ascetic practices that open the door to understanding.  That is the great gift that Socrates, and Plato, have given humanity.