Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 28

30 August 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 28

Continuing with my series on Phaedo, I am using the Harold North Fowler translation published by the Loeb Classical Library.

“Now all of us, as we remarked to one another afterwards, were very uncomfortable when we heard what they said; for we had been thoroughly convinced by the previous argument, and now they seemed to be throwing us again into confusion and distrust, not only in respect to the past discussion but also with regard to any future one.  They made us fear that our judgment was worthless or that no certainty could be attained in these matters.

“Echecrates:  ‘By the gods, Phaedo, I sympathise with you; for I myself after listening to you am inclined to ask myself: “What argument shall we believe henceforth?  For the argument of Socrates was perfectly convincing, and now it has fallen into discredit.”  For the doctrine that the soul is a kind of harmony has always had (and has now) a wonderful hold upon me, and your mention of it reminded me that I had myself believed in it before.  Now I must begin over again and find another argument to convince me that when a man dies his soul does not perish with him.  So, for heaven’s sake, tell how Socrates continued the discourse, and whether he also, as you say the rest of you did, showed any uneasiness, or calmly defended his argument.  And did he defend it successfully?  Tell us everything as accurately as you can.’

“Phaedo:  ‘Echecrates, I have often wondered at Socrates, but never did I admire him more than then.  That he had an answer ready was perhaps to be expected; but what astonished me more about him was, first, the pleasant, gentle, and respectful manner in which he listened to the young men’s criticisms, secondly, his quick sense of the effect their words had upon us, and lastly the skill with which he cured us and, as it were, recalled us from our flight and defeat and made us face about and follow him and join in his examination of the argument.’

“Echecrates:  ‘How did he do it?’

“Phaedo:  ‘I will tell you.  I was sitting at his right hand on a low stool beside his couch, and his seat was a good deal higher than mine.  He stroked my head and gathered the hair on the back of my neck into his hand – he had a habit of playing with my hair on occasion – and said, “Tomorrow, perhaps, Phaedo, you will cut off this beautiful hair.”’

“’I suppose so, Socrates,’ said I.

“’Not if you take my advice.’

“’ What shall I do then?’ I asked.

“’You will cut it off today, and I will cut mine, if our argument dies and we cannot bring it to life again.  If I were you and the argument escaped me, I would take an oath, like the Argives, not to let my hair grow until I had renewed the fight and won a victory over the argument of Simmias and Cebes.’

“’But,’ I replied, ‘they say that even Heracles is not a match for two.’

“’Well,’ said he, ‘call me to help you, as your Iolaus, while there is still light.’

“’I call you to help, then,’ said I, ‘not as Heracles calling Iolaus, but as Iolaus calling Heracles.’

“’That is all one,’ said he.  ‘But first let us guard against a danger.’

“’Of what sort?’ I asked.

“’The danger of becoming misologists or haters of argument,’ said he, ‘as people become misanthropists or haters of man; for no worse evil can happen to a man than to hate argument.  Misology and misanthropy arise from similar causes.  For misanthropy arises from trusting someone implicitly without sufficient knowledge.  You think the man is perfectly true and sound and trustworthy, and afterwards you find him base and false.  Then you have the same experience with another person.  By the time this has happened to a man a good many times, especially if it happens among those whom he might regard as his nearest and dearest friends, he ends by being in continual quarrels and by hating everybody and thinking there is nothing sound in anyone at all.  Have you not noticed this?’

“’Certainly,’ said I.

“’Well,’ he went on, ‘is it not disgraceful, and is it not plain that such a man undertakes to consort with men when he has no knowledge of human nature?  For if he had knowledge when he dealt with them, he would think that the good and the bad are both very few and those between the two are very many, for that is the case.’

“’What do you mean?’

“’I mean just what I might say about the large and small.  Do you think there is anything more unusual than to find a very large or a very small man, or dog, or other creature, or again, one that is very quick or slow, very ugly or beautiful, very black or white?  Have you not noticed that the extremes in all these instances are rare and few, and the examples between the extremes are very many?’

“’To be sure,’ said I.

“’And don’t you think,’ said he, ‘that if there were to be a competition in rascality, those who excelled would be very few in that also?’

“’Very likely,’ I replied.

“’Very, very likely,’ he said.  ‘But it is not in that respect that arguments are like men; I was merely following your lead in discussing that.  The similarity lies in this: when a man without proper knowledge concerning arguments has confidence in the truth of an argument and afterwards thinks that it is false, whether it really is so or not, and this happens again and again; then you know, those men especially who have spent their time in disputation come to believe that they are the wisest of men and that they alone have discovered that there is nothing sound or sure in anything, whether argument or anything else, but all things go up and down, like the tide in the Euripus, and nothing is stable for any length of time.’

“’Certainly,’ I said, ‘that is very true.’

“’Then, Phaedo,’ he said, ‘if there is any system of argument which is true and sure and can be learned, it would be a sad thing if a man, because he has met with some of those arguments which seem to be sometimes true and sometimes false, should then not blame himself or his own lack of skill, but should end, in his vexation, by throwing the blame gladly upon the arguments and should hate and revile them all the rest of his life, and be deprived of the truth and knowledge of reality.’

“’Yes, by Zeus,’ I said, ‘it would be sad.’

“’First, then,’ said he, ‘let us be on our guard against this, and let us not admit into our souls the notion that there is no soundness in arguments at all.  Let us far rather assume that we ourselves are not yet in sound condition and that we must strive manfully and eagerly to become so, you and the others for the sake of all your future life, and I because of my impending death; for I fear that I am not just now in a philosophical frame of mind as regards this particular question, but am contentious, like quite uncultured persons.  For when they argue about anything, they do not care what the truth is in the matters they are discussing, but are eager only to make their own views seem true to their hearers.  And I fancy I differ from them just now only to this extent: I shall not be eager to make what I say seem true to my hearers, except as a secondary matter, but shall be very eager to make myself believe it.  For see, my friend, how selfish my attitude is.  If what I say is true, I am the gainer by believing it; and if there be nothing for me after death, at any rate I shall not be burdensome to my friends by my lamentations in these last moments.  And this ignorance of mine will not last, for that would be an evil, but will soon end.  So,’ he said, ‘Simmias and Cebes, I approach the argument with my mind thus prepared.  But you, if you do as I ask, will give little thought to Socrates and much more to the truth; and if you think what I say is true, agree to it, and if not, oppose me with every argument you can muster, that I may not in my eagerness deceive myself and you alike and go away, like a bee, leaving my sting sticking in you.’

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 305-315, 88C-91C)

1.  This part of the dialogue is a digression, as opposed to a bridge, on the topic of misology, which means being repelled by arguing, and argument, as such.  Just as a misanthrope views humanity negatively, usually for personal and/or emotional reasons, a misologist views philosophical discussion, argument, investigation as inherently negative. 

2.  This digression is brought forward by Phaedo and Echecrates, whom we haven’t heard from since the opening of the dialogue.  I suspect more than a few readers might have forgotten that everything presented is being narrated by Phaedo to Echecrates.  Part of the purpose of this passage is to remind the reader of the context of the dialogue.

3.  The frustration that is being depicted is that people both at the jail, and Phaedo and Echecrates, have the experience of finding the arguments of Socrates convincing, only to have that conviction undermined by Cebes and Simmias who seem to both be keen to bring some kind of critique after each of Socrates’s presentations (logoi). 

This is not an unusual reaction to philosophical discussions.  I recall that when I took an Introductory course in Philosophy, that was long ago, many people were openly frustrated by the alternatives that were being presented on various issues, such as the problem of universals.  For someone new to philosophy it is difficult to find a way of measuring and sifting through these various alternatives.  Doing so is intense intellectual work and most people are not prepared for these kinds of investigations.

4.  Socrates depicts the situation regarding a man who thought a particular argument was true, and then for some reason decides it is false (whether or not that is really the case) has the tendency to think of themselves as particularly wise and insightful and come to the conclusion that there is nothing that is really true or false and that the whole process of investigating philosophical claims is fruitless.  It is remarkable how widespread that feeling is today; in fact at this time it has manifested in some ideologies as an intense opposition to discussion at all, a dramatic example of misology.

5.  Socrates points out that when many people argue they do not care what the truth is, they are ‘contentious’ because they want to win the argument but they are not concerned with finding the truth.  This has always been a difficulty in philosophy.  In the context of Plato’s Dialogues this is often brought up in the context of the Sophists who taught their students oratorical skills of persuasion that moved an audience but had no relation to the truth.  We today are almost drowned in these kinds of techniques by our exposure to advertising and political discussions that are focused completely on a faction retaining or gaining power, not on the truth of a situation.  During war these kinds of techniques are used extensively by both sides resulting in the well-known, and well-studied, ‘fog of war.’  It is not surprising, given this context, that many people become misologists.

6.  Philosophical discussion is, therefore, something unusual; it is discussion whose purpose is to find the truth, align with truth, draw out the implications of the truth, and so forth.  This assumes that there is such a thing as truth, a view that many in modernity reject.

7.  Having a genuine philosophical discussion requires training in the virtues, particularly in temperance, or sophrosyne.  This is a necessary virtue for philosophical discussion because, in a discussion between person A and B, it doesn’t matter, from a philosophical perspective, whether A’s position turns out to be true, or B’s position turns out to be true, or whether both are wrong, or both had partial understandings.  If A is a philosopher and has cultivated temperance, he will feel exactly the same if his analysis is correct, or if B’s analysis turns out to be correct.  Person A will feel exactly the same, that is to say he will be delighted that the truth has been discovered. 

This means developing a kind of contemplative distance, or non-attachment, to one’s own ideas so that there is space in the mind for other possibilities.

8.  In contrast, most people who enter into discussions are in pursuit of other goals than the truth.  These other goals must be abandoned in order to have a genuine philosophical discussion.  I refer to these as the ‘five abandonings’: they are to abandon fame, abandon status, abandon wealth, abandon power, and abandon winning.  When temperance, or equanimity, are cultivated it is possible to abandon these five hindrances to the truth and have a philosophical discussion.  When this is accomplished it is a beautiful thing; there is a kind of energetic exchange that takes place between those engaged in such philosophical discourse.  It is a kind of pleasure, but it is not a sensory pleasure; it is almost as if the participants are in touch with the divine, and maybe they are.  Amazing things can happen in this context; for example, unexpected insights may appear in this kind of exchange, and alternative solutions that neither participant held may emerge, seemingly on their own.

8.1  If someone pursues some other goal when having a discussion, then they will measure the success of the discussion by the standards of that goal rather than whether or not the discussion moved towards the truth.  For example, if someone enters into a discussion to increase their power, then that is the standard they will use to measure the success of the discussion.  Truth as a standard falls by the wayside.

9.  When Socrates states that there is no worse destiny than to become a misologist, I think Socrates is pointing out that the result of such an attitude is to remove the possibility of the kind of philosophical discussion that emerges from the cultivation of virtue and is conducted on the basis of the five abandonings.  To cut off the possibility of this kind of interaction is to diminish the quality of one’s life, to make it duller and unnecessarily limited, it is to cut off even the possibility of the practice of virtue.