Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 11.1

27 September 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 11.1

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

“The body and its desires are the only cause of wars and factions and battles; for all wars arise for the sake of gaining money, and we are compelled to gain money for the sake of the body.  We are slaves to its service.”

(Ibid, Fowler, page 231, 66D)

1.  This is an addendum to my post from 28 June 2023.  I had intended to comment on the portion quoted above, but forgot to do so at that time.  In recent posts the focus has been on causation as it applies to the existence of, and immortality of, the soul.  All this talk about causation cast my mind back to this passage; I suddenly recalled that I had not posted a comment about this particular passage.  The connection is that Socrates is giving us a causal analysis of the origins of war in this quote and that was what linked it to the discussions about causation I have been posting about recently.

2.  I think what brought me back to this quote is all the discussion about opposites.  This led me to consider the opposites of ‘war and peace.’  And the only place in Phaedo where war is discussed is in this quote.

3.  Socrates argues that the only cause of war is the body and its desires.  War is fought to fulfill those desires.  Subsidiary to this is the desire for money; but the desire for money is to fulfill the desires of the body.

This is an analysis at the level of material causation, or psychological causation (I regard psychological causation as material in nature).  The view leads to the conclusion that as long as human beings are embodied there will be war.  It is an example of a modus ponens argument:

If there is a body

Then there will be war.

Human beings have a body.

Therefore human beings will have war(s).

It is interesting to me that this is one of the few places where Socrates uses syllogistic to make a point.

4.  This also implies that efforts to bring about peace that do not recognize the pivotal, causal, role of bodily desire will fail.  That is to say that simply rearranging material conditions will not lead to peace according to this analysis.

5.  If you think that war is a terrible thing (and most people do not think it is terrible), then this kind of analysis is a strong motivator for separating the soul from the body as much as possible so that you are free from the impulses that are foundational for war.

6.  The passage is an application of what I call the Ascetic Ideal and provides us with a good reason for entering into the ascetic practices that are recommended in Phaedo.  By rejecting a life based on acquisition and money, by separating ourselves as much as possible from the body, we undermine the causal ground from which wars emerge.  This is a great gift and benefit to the individuals practicing asceses, but it is also a great gift and benefit to all of humanity; not because the Platonist Ascetic is doing this for the benefit of humanity as a whole, rather the benefit to all simply flows from the nature of ascetic practice in the way that light and life flow from the sun, in the way that the scent of flowers is born on the wind.

7.  Asceticism is the ground of true peace.

8.  Another way of looking at this is that peace comes from knowledge of, and experience of, the noetic.  That is to say that peace is a noetic reality, not a material reality.  This understanding resembles the Platonic understanding of beauty.  There is beauty on earth, but the beauty found on earth is an emanation of the Beauty that has its home in nous.  Platonists recognize the significance of beauty as a kind of gate to higher realities.  We accomplish this ascent to noetic Beauty by observing diverse instantiations of beauty (such as a beautiful rock, a beautiful house, a beautiful melody, and so forth) and then shifting our attention from the beautiful object to Beauty as such.

In a similar way, there are, at times, which are increasingly rare, manifestations of peace in the material realm.  Some of these are very ordinary such as when we have a conversation with a good friend and the verbal back and forth flows easily and without rancor, even when there is disagreement.  Sometimes the experience of peace will appear while watching a sunset or some other natural appearance.  But these examples of peace are here because they instantiate noetic peace.  And the same contemplative procedure can be used that we used to experience Beauty as such, meaning noetic beauty, to experience Peace as such, meaning noetic peace.  I mean contemplating examples of peace in our life and then shifting our attention to Peace as such. 

9.  There is support for this view of war and peace, and that peace is not a part of this material world, in the Theravada Buddhist Discourses.  When asked what is Nibbana (Nirvana), the Buddha would, at times, respond, “Nibbana is peace.”  Nibbana is the ‘other shore’, the transcendental that is ‘beyond beyond.’

10.  We live in the realm of differentiation, the third hypostasis.  This differentiation, combined with material desires, leads to constant friction that often erupts in war.  As both Heraclitus and Empedocles said, strife is an omnipresent, elemental, feature of material reality.

If we want to find true peace we must shift our attention to the transcendental.  We shift our attention to the transcendental by following the Ascetic Ideal.  When we follow the Ascetic Ideal we will experience true peace.