Wisdom 4

25 November 2023

Wisdom 4

“Now we have also been saying for a long time, have we not, that, when the soul makes use of the body for any inquiry, either through seeing or hearing or any of the other senses – for inquiry through the body means inquiry through the senses, -- then it is dragged by the body to things which never remain the same, and it wanders about and is confused and dizzy like a drunken man because it lays hold upon such things?

“Certainly.

“But when the soul inquires alone by itself, it departs into the realm of the pure, the everlasting, the immortal, and the changeless, and being akin to these it dwells always with them whenever it is by itself and is not hindered, and it has rest from its wanderings and remains always the same and unchanging with the changeless, since it is in communion therewith.  And this state of the soul is called wisdom.”

(Plato, Phaedo, translated by Harold North Fowler, Plato I, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914, 79C-D, page 277, ISBN: 0674990404)

1.  This is a beautiful description of what the soul experiences when it has, to the degree that it is possible while having a body, separated itself from the body.  This is done by withdrawing from sensory experience; again, to the degree that it is possible to do so.

2.  This is a good passage to follow the quote I previously gave from Plotinus where Plotinus concludes Ennead VI.6 with the flight of the alone to the alone, or as Armstrong translates, ‘escape in solitude to the solitary.’  The word ‘alone’ in these contexts means being unaccompanied by the body and its clamor and concerns.  But I don’t think it has the connotation of being ‘isolated’, which ‘alone’ often has in common usage.  An analogy might be helpful; if you are at a gathering where people are rowdy, argumentative, hypercritical, and baselessly opinionated, it can be a big relief to withdraw from the gathering.  Such a withdrawal does not lead to feelings of isolation; in a strange way the raucous gathering feels isolating.  Similarly, to live a life that is not based on the constant demands of the body is often experienced as a relief rather than isolation.

3.  According to this passage, wisdom is a state of communion with the changeless.  The changeless means the deathless and unborn.  This is done by ‘distinguishing’ eternity, becoming clear what is eternity as such, and what is not eternity as such.  This kind of wisdom takes time and dedication to understand, and even more time to internalize so that the distinction is stabilized.  But with the practices offered in the Phaedo, such as asceticism and wisdom, it is possible through wisdom to commune with the Good and the One.