Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 32

10 September 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 32

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

“’After this, then,’ said he (Socrates), ‘since I had given up investigating realities, I decided that I must be careful not to suffer the misfortune which happens to people who look at the sun and watch it during an eclipse.  For some of them ruin their eyes unless they look at its image in water or something of the sort.  I thought of that danger, and I was afraid my soul would be blinded if I looked at things with my eyes and tried to grasp them with any of my senses.  So I thought I must have recourse to conceptions and examine in them the truth of realities.  Now perhaps my metaphor is not quite accurate; for I do not grant in the least that he who studies realities by means of conceptions is looking at them in images any more than he who studies them in the facts of daily life.  However, that is the way I began.  I assume in each case some principle which I consider strongest, and whatever seems to me to agree with this, whether relating to cause or to anything else, I regard as true, and whatever disagrees with it, as untrue.  But I want to tell you more clearly what I mean; for I think you do not understand now.’

“’Not very well, certainly,’ said Cebes.

“’Well,’ said Socrates, ‘this is what I mean.  It is nothing new, but the same thing I have always been saying, both in our previous conversation and elsewhere.  I am going to try to explain to you the nature of that cause which I have been studying, and I will revert to those familiar subjects of ours as my point of departure and assume that there are such things as absolute beauty and good and greatness and the like.  If you grant this and agree that these exist, I believe I shall explain cause to you and shall prove that the soul is immortal.’

“’You may assume,’ said Cebes, ‘that I grant it, and go on.’

"'Then,' said he, ‘see if you agree with me in the next step.  I think that if anything is beautiful besides absolute beauty it is beautiful for no other reason than because it partakes of absolute beauty; and this applies to everything.  Do you assent to this view of cause?’

“’I do,’ said he.

“Now I do not yet, understand,’ he went on, ‘nor can I perceive those other ingenious causes.  If anyone tells me that what makes a thing beautiful is its lovely colour, or its shape or anything else of the sort, I let all that go, for all those things confuse me, and I hold simply and plainly and perhaps foolishly to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful but the presence or communion (call it which you please) of absolute beauty, however it may have been gained; about the way in which it happens, I make no positive statement as yet, but I do insist that beautiful things are made beautiful by beauty.  For I think this is the safest answer I can give to myself or to others, and if I cleave fast to this, I think I shall never be overthrown, and I believe it is safe for me or anyone else to give this answer, that beautiful things are beautiful through beauty.  Do you agree?’

“’I do.’”

1.  In this passage Socrates tells us about a method he used for understanding things, both sensory, material, things and conceptions; Socrates points out that both the experiences of the senses and the experience of conceptions are ‘images.’  Interestingly, this accords with some aspects of Buddhist psychology in which six domains of experience are references: eye, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind (small ‘m’ mind).  In Western psychology the tendency is to think of mind, and mental experience, as distinct from sensory experience.  This may have been the view of Anaxagoras who we talked about earlier, because Anaxagoras seemed to think of the mind as the organizer of sensory experience.

But Socrates places the two on a more equal footing by referring to both as ‘images.’  In Buddhist psychology the small-m mind realm perceives mental objects such as ideas, conceptions, feelings, emotions, hopes, fears, etc., in the same way that the eye perceives visual things, in the same way that the ear perceives sonic things, and so forth.  For this reason, in Buddhism, mental objects and sensory objects have the same ontological status.

In a Platonic context, Socrates considers the two the ‘same’ in that both of them are ‘images’, meaning that both sensory objects and mental objects are emanations of higher, noetic, realities and are dependent upon those realities.  This is the overall causal context and experience of Socrates and forms the nourishing ground of his understanding.

2.  Socrates states that his method is ‘nothing new.’  I think that implies that Socrates is not the inventor or creator of the approach he is outlining for Cebes.  This also implies that Socrates learned about this approach, but he does not name the specific teacher, which leaves us wondering who might have transmitted to Socrates this Way of understanding?  There is no lack of candidates; it could be Diotima (see Symposium), the Pythagorean tradition as a whole (this is supported by the significant number of Pythagoreans present at the passing of Socrates), Orphism is another possible source, and there are other mystery traditions that may have presented this method.  The method Socrates refers to may have been an ancient, even archaic, approach that was part of a general, shared, understanding and therefore did not belong to a specific tradition, which might explain why Socrates does not associate this method with any specific person or philosophical school.

3.  Socrates starts by ‘assuming a principle’ and then using that principle to winnow what is true and false; that which is in agreement with the principle is true and that which is not in agreement is false.  At this point I think what is helpful to absorb is that Socrates is not starting with empirical observation and then deducing the truth.  Rather he is starting with a principle and then applying that principle to statements about material existence.  That’s the contrast.  It is a different way, almost a complete inversion, of what is recommended today for pursuing understanding.

It might be helpful to compare this approach to other activities as helpful analogies.  For example, a composer, when writing a song, decides at the start if he is going to use the major or minor scale for the song.  And then uses that decision as a principle where by the rest of the song is shaped.  Similarly, the composer will choose a time signature, like 4-4 or 6-8, and then this choice functions as a principle that shapes the rest of the song.  I know there are differences here, but in some ways I see the principle that Socrates is pointing to as a creative act, that is to say a creative act from the noetic sphere into the third hypostasis in which we dwell.

4.  Socrates explicitly states his view of causation is grounded in the understanding that there is such as things as ‘absolute beauty and good and greatness and the like.’  The importance of absolute beauty (I understand this to mean noetic beauty) for the Platonic tradition cannot be overstated.  It is a central focus in Symposium and Phaedrus.  And there are two Enneads, I.6 On Beauty, and V.8 On the Intelligible (Noetic) Beauty where Plotinus unpacks the Platonic understanding of Beauty at different hypostatic levels.  I don’t think it is an accident that the first absolute that Socrates identifies is that of beauty; my intuitive inference is that it was through beauty that the tradition that passed on this teaching most often taught its understanding and passed it on.

5.  Socrates continues that nothing else makes a thing beautiful other than absolute beauty, beauty as such, noetic Beauty.  Further, Socrates states that if someone tells him that something is beautiful because of the arrangement of its parts, that he just lets all of that go since it is beside the point.

The experience of beauty works very well in this context (that of teaching people about the existence of the noetic realities because human beings experience beauty in many different situations; beauty can be found in visual experiences, sonic experiences, beauty can be found in virtuous conduct (as Plotinus points out), beauty can be found in numbers and their relationships, and so forth.  From this wide range of experience it can then be pointed out that what Beauty means is beyond any particular sensory domain for if beauty were only a visual experience, it could not be found in sonic experience.  And if beauty were only an olfactory experience (such as incense) it could not be found in a virtue, as in a virtuous person, and so forth.  Plotinus instructs people who understand this to lift their awareness up to the source of all these instantiations of beauty and when they do so they enter the domain of Beauty as such which is the source of all material distinguishable experiences of the beautiful.  “Beautiful things are made beautiful through beauty.”

6.  It is interesting that Socrates refrains from making positive statements about how this all works, meaning, I think, how absolute Beauty is instantiated in particulars.  I read this as Socrates not wanting to get sidetracked at this point into the complexities of how emanation proceeds, rather than Socrates saying that he lacks such knowledge.  The specifics of how emanation works, the structure of higher hypostases, and the relationship between hypostases, is complex and not easy to access or understand, especially at first hearing.  If Socrates is introducing to his students this way of looking at things, it makes sense that he would refrain from spending his very limited time on such details.  Instead, Socrates uses broad strokes to get the main idea across.

7.  “For I think this is the safest answer I can give to myself or to others, and if I cleave to this, I think I shall never be overthrown . . . “ 

Notice how there is no hesitancy at this point.  His confidence is secure.  This kind of confidence grows out of experience; in this case the experience of noetic realities such as Beauty and Number.  And this security is what allows Socrates to be content with his fate as he prepares himself for his final ascent to the divine noetic domain.

 

  

Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 31

8 August 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 31

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

“’Then one day I heard a man reading from a book, as he said, by Anaxagoras, that it is the mind that arranges and causes all things.  I was pleased with this theory of cause, and it seemed to me to be somehow right and that the mind should be the cause of all things, and I thought, “If this is so, the mind in arranging things arranges everything and establishes each thing as it is best for it to be.  So if anyone wishes to find the cause of the generation or destruction or existence of a particular thing, he must find out what sort of existence, or passive state of any kind, or activity is best for it.  And therefore in respect to that particular thing, and other things too, a man need examine nothing but what is best and most excellent; for then he will necessarily know also what is inferior, since the science of both is the same.”  As I considered these things I was delighted to think that I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the cause of things quite to my mind, and I thought he would tell me whether the earth is flat or round, and when he had told me that, would go on to explain the cause and the necessity of it, and would tell me the nature of the best and why it is best for the earth to be as it is; and if he said the earth was in the centre, he would proceed to show that it is best for it to be in the centre; and I had made up my mind that if he made those things clear to me, I would no longer yearn for any other kind of cause.  And I had determined that I would find out in the same way about the sun and the moon and the other stars, their relative speed, their revolutions, and their other changes, and why the active or passive condition of each of them is for the best.  For I never imagined that, when he said they were ordered by intelligence, he would introduce any other cause for these things than that it is best for them to be as they are.  So I thought when he assigned the cause of each thing and of all things in common he would go on and explain what is best for each and what is good for all in common.  I prized my hopes very highly, and I seized the books very eagerly and read them as fast as I could, that I might know as fast as I could about the best and the worst.

“’My glorious hope, my friend, was quickly snatched away from me.  As I went on with my reading I saw that the man made no use of intelligence, and did not assign any real causes for the ordering of things, but mentioned as causes air and ether and water and many other absurdities.  And it seemed to me it was very much as if one should say that Socrates does with intelligence whatever he does, and then, in trying to give the causes of the particular thing I do, should say first that I am now sitting here because my body is composed of bones and sinews, and the bones are hard and have joints which divide them and the sinews can be contracted and relaxed and, with the flesh and the skin which contains them all, are laid about the bones; and so, as the bones are hung loose in their ligaments, the sinews, by relaxing and contracting, make me able to bend my limbs now, and that is the cause of my sitting here with my legs bent.  Or as if in the same way he should give voice and air and hearing and countless other things of the sort as causes for our talking with each other, and should fail to mention the real causes, which are, that the Athenians decided that it was best to condemn me, and therefore I have decided that it was best for me to sit here and that it is right for me to stay and undergo whatever penalty they order.  For, by the Dog, I fancy these bones and sinews of mine would have been in Megara or Boeotia long ago, carried thither by an opinion of what was best, if I did not think it was better and nobler to endure any penalty the city may inflict rather than to escape and run away.  But it is most absurd to call things of that sort causes.  If anyone were to say that I could not have done what I thought proper if I had not bones and sinews and other things that I have, he would be right.  But to say that those things are the cause of my doing what I do, and that I act with intelligence but not from the choice of what is best, would an extremely careless way of talking.  Whoever talks in that way is unable to make a distinction and to see that in reality a cause is one thing, and the thing without which the cause could never be a cause is quite another thing.  And so it seems to me that most people, when they give the name of cause to the latter, are groping in the dark, as it were, and are giving it a name that does not belong to it.  And so one man makes the earth stay below the heavens by putting a vortex about it, and another regards the earth as a flat trough supported on a foundation of air; but they do not look for the power which causes things to be now placed as it is best for them to be placed, nor do they think it has any divine force, but they think they can find a new Atlas more powerful and more immortal and more all-embracing than this, and in truth they give no thought to the good, which must embrace and hold together all things.  Now I would gladly be the pupil of anyone who would teach me the nature of such a cause; but since that was denied me and I was not able to discover it myself or to learn of it from anyone else, do you wish me Cebes,’ said he, ‘to give you an account of the way in which I have conducted my second voyage in quests of the causes?’

“’I wish it with all my heart,’ he replied.”

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 334-343, 97C-99D)

1.  This section is largely about the influence that Anaxagoras had on Socrates when he was a young man, and how Socrates overcame that influence.  Anaxagoras lived from about 500 BCE to 428 BCE.  Socrates lived from 470 BCE to 399 BCE; this means that Anaxagoras was an older contemporary of Socrates. 

Anaxagoras was from the city of Clazomenae which was a Greek city in Southern Italy.  He studied philosophy in Athens around 456 BCE (according to Diogenes Laertius).  Anaxagoras was a successful teacher and attracted students.  His books appear to have been widely read and among their readership was Socrates.  Unfortunately, only a small number of fragments remain from these books so that it is difficult to gain clarity as to what the teachings of Anaxagoras were.

In Diogenes Laertius there is a quote from the ‘beginning’ of his treatise, “All things were together; then mind came and set them in order.”  This accords with how Socrates described the teachings of Anaxagoras and how Anaxagoras viewed mind.  It does not seem to be the case that Anaxagoras was an early example of Idealism, rather when Anaxagoras refers to ‘mind’ he is referring to the way mind sets things in order, how the mind brings order to observation.  It does not seem to be the case that Anaxagoras thought of mind as having a transcendental dimension.

If this is correct, and it seems to be what Socrates is saying about Anaxagoras, then Anaxagoras would be an early example of a naturalist, and perhaps a materialist as well (though that is more difficult to infer).  For example he said that the sun is a mass of burning iron, that animals were produced from moisture, heat, and earth; things like that.  This implies that Anaxagoras view of causation was strictly limited to material observation. 

But there is another dimension of the life of Anaxagoras that is relevant to our reading of Phaedo.  And that is that Anaxagoras was indicted at Athens, charged with impiety which was a capital offense similar to, perhaps identical with, charges brought against Socrates.  Anaxagoras was put in prison, but was later released, perhaps because he had friends in high places.  Some accounts say he left Athens and died at Lampsacus.  Other accounts suggest that Anaxagoras took his own life due, perhaps, to the humiliation he had suffered and the fact that two of his sons had passed away while he was in prison.  I don’t see any way of determining which account might be true.  (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, translated by Pamela Mensch, edited by James Miller, Oxford University Press, 2018, pages 63-69, ISBN: 9780190862176)

This earlier example of a philosopher clashing with Athenian law is not explicitly spoken of in Phaedo.  But everyone present would have known about it, since it happened less than 30 years before.  The young students of Socrates were likely not alive at that time, but it is the kind of story that they would have heard of.

This also tells us how strongly Athenian culture demanded allegiance to their civic religion.  Yet, paradoxically, at the same time Athens was the place where challenges to civic religion were taking place. 

2.  The critique by Socrates of the philosophy of Anaxagoras is that it lacks any understanding of non-material causation.  Socrates uses the example of how he is now talking to his students in prison and that Anaxagoras would say that the cause of that is the air carrying the sounds made by their vocal cords.  But this is beside the point; the real reason they are all gathered is that decision by the Athenians based on what the Athenians judged was best.  But this kind of judgment is an abstraction, it is not reducible to material factors, nor is it illuminated by a materialistic analysis.

3.  Socrates sums up his critique by pointing out that material explanations of causation give no thought to the good, ‘which must embrace and hold all things together.’  Here Socrates is referring to the Good and the One, that is to that which is pure unity.  From a Platonic perspective, the reason there are things, and not nothing, is that all things participate in the Unity of the One and the Good.  This is the ultimate cause of the cosmos in which we dwell and the World Soul which orders all things in material existence.  This way of thinking is absent from Anaxagoras. 

It is interesting to speculate as to how much Socrates had studied these kinds of teachings as a young man and how he was able to apply what he had learned in his critique of Anaxagoras.  But that would only be speculation.  What Socrates is doing is instructing his followers that causation has its origin in a transcendental source and that it is this transcendental source which makes the cosmos, and the noetic, and the fully transcendental, comprehensible.

 

 

Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 30

5 September 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 30

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

“’Very well,’ said Socrates, ‘Harmonia, the Theban goddess, has, it seems, been moderately gracious to us; but how, Cebes, and by what argument can we find grace in the sight of Cadmus?’

“’I think,’ said Cebes, ‘you will find a way.  At any rate, you conducted this argument against harmony wonderfully and better than I expected.  For when Simmias was telling of his difficulty, I wondered if anyone could make head against his argument; so it seemed to me very remarkable that it could not withstand the first attack of your argument.  Now I should not be surprised if the argument of Cadmus met with the same fate.’

“’My friend, ‘ said Socrates, ‘do not be boastful, lest some evil eye put to rout the argument that is to come.  That, however, is in the hands of God.  Let us, in Homeric fashion, “charge the foe” and test the worth of what you say.  Now the sum total of what you seek is this: You demand a proof that our soul is indestructible and immortal, if the philosopher, who is confident in the face of death and who thinks that after death he will fare better in the other world than if he had lived his life differently, is not to find his confidence senseless and foolish.  And although we show that the soul is strong and godlike and existed before we men were born as men, all this, you say, may bear witness not to immortality, but only to the fact that the soul lasts a long while, and existed somewhere an immeasurably long time before our birth, and knew and did various things; yet it was none the more immortal for all that, but its very entrance into the human body was the beginning of its dissolution, a disease, as it were; and it lies in toil through this life and finally perishes in what we call death.  Now it makes no difference, you say, whether a soul enters into a body once or many times, so far as the fear each of us feels is concerned; for anyone, unless he is a fool, must fear, if he does not know and cannot prove that the soul is immortal.  That, Cebes, is, I think, about what you mean.  And I restate it purposely that nothing may escape us and that you may, if you wish, add or take away anything.’

“And Cebes said, ‘I do not at present wish to take anything away or to add anything.  You have expressed my meaning.’

“Socrates paused for some time and was absorbed in thought.  The he said, ‘It is no small thing that you seek; for the cause of generation and decay must be completely investigated.  Now I will tell you my own experience in the matter, if you wish; then if anything I say seems to you to be of any use, you can employ it for the solution of your difficulty.’

“’Certainly,’ said Cebes, ‘I wish to hear your experiences.’

“’Listen then, and I will tell you.  When I was young, Cebes, I was tremendously eager for the kind of wisdom which they call investigation of nature.  I thought it was a glorious thing to know the causes of everything, why each thing comes into being and why it perishes and why it exists; and I was always unsettling myself with such questions as these: Do heat and cold, by a sort of fermentation, bring about the organization of animals, as some people say?  Is it the blood, or air, or fire by which we think?  Or is it none of these, and does the brain furnish the sensations of hearing and sight and smell, and do memory and opinion arise from these, and does knowledge come from memory and opinion in a state of rest?  And again I tried to find out how these things perish, and I investigated the phenomena of heaven and earth until finally I made up my mind that I was by nature totally unfitted for this kind of investigation.  And I will give you a sufficient proof of this.  I was so completely blinded by these studies that I lost the knowledge that I, and others also, thought I had before; I forgot what I had formerly believed I knew about many things and even about the cause of man’s growth.  For I had thought previously that it was plain to everyone that man grows through eating and drinking; for when, from the food he eats, flesh is added to his flesh and bones to his bones, and in the same way the appropriate thing is added to each of his other parts, then the small bulk becomes greater and the small man large.  That is what I used to think.  Doesn’t that seem to you reasonable?’

“’Yes,’ said Cebes.

“’Now, listen to this, too.  I thought I was sure enough, when I saw a tall man standing by a short one, that he was, say, taller by a head than the other, and that one horse was larger by a head than another horse; and, to mention still clearer things than those, I thought ten were more than eight because two had been added to the eight, and I thought a two-cubit rule was longer than a one-cubit rule because it exceeded it by half its length.’

“’And now,’ said Cebes, ‘what do you think about them?’

“’By Zeus,’ said he, ‘I am far from thinking that I know the cause of any of these things, I who do not even dare to say, when one is added to one, whether the one to which the addition was made has become two, or the one which was added, or the one which was added and the one to which it was added became two by the addition of each to the other.  I think it is wonderful that when each of them was separate from the other, each was one and they were not then two, and when they were brought near each other this juxtaposition was the cause of their becoming two.  And I cannot yet believe that if one is divided, the division causes it to become two; for this is the opposite of the cause which produced two in the former case; for then two arose because one was brought near and added to another one, and now because one is removed and separated from another.  And I no longer believe that I know by this method even how one is generated or, in a word, how anything is generated or is destroyed or exists, and I no longer admit this method, but have another confused way of my own.’”

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 327-335, 95A-97B)

1.  This section is a fascinating intellectual autobiography by Socrates.  It starts when he is a young man, just beginning his intellectual and spiritual journey.  I’m going to divide this section into several posts because each stage is fairly well-defined and because a single post covering the whole journey would simply be too long and complex.

2.  The section starts off with a brief bit of banter by Socrates who makes a pun on the word ‘harmony’, central to the previous discussion, and the goddess Harmonia.  Harmonia was the Greek goddess of harmony and concord.  Like many Greek deities there are multiple stories about the origins of Harmonia, but one account portrays Harmonia as the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.  Harmonia was the wife of Cadmus who was the founder of the Greek City of Thebes.  Both Simmias and Cebes were Thebans, hence Socrates’s playful bringing up Cadmus and Harmonia.  Herodotus states that Cadmus introduced the Phoenician alphabet to the Greeks.  Cadmus was considered to be one of the great heroes of Greece, having participated in significant battles and disputes.  Perhaps when Socrates refers to finding ‘grace’ in the presence of Cadmus he is using the heroic reputation of Cadmus as a symbol of the kind of heroism it takes to pursue philosophical disputes to their conclusions.  This kind of imagery continues with Socrates’s reference to Homer and how they should, in Homeric fashion ‘charge the foe.’

3.  Socrates offers a summary of the position that Cebes remains committed to; namely that the soul may be reborn a number of times, or even very numerous times, but at the end of a series of rebirths the soul will, eventually dissolve, and that is what death is.  Cebes demands proof that this is not the case.

What is interesting to me is that Socrates has previously provided arguments, logoi, that undermine the position that Cebes holds.  The most significant one, I think, is the cyclic nature of material existence, or the third hypostasis.  I’ve mentioned this before, but in the context of this part of the dialogue it is worth bringing up again.  The cyclic nature of existence means that life and death cyclically generate each other and are intimately intertwined (like samsara in Buddhism).  But for some reason Cebes simply does not comprehend how this applies to his persistent question.

4.  “Socrates paused for some time and was absorbed in thought.”  My feeling is that this pause was Socrates considering what other approach might speak to Cebes more clearly, or address the concerns of Cebes in a manner that Cebes can access.

5.  This is the point where Socrates shifts the discussion to his own autobiography which depicts his own journey through a number of philosophical options.  The passage is very helpful in understanding the intellectual development of Socrates.

6.  The central idea around which the intellectual journey of Socrates revolves in this telling is the understanding of causation.  Each turn in the journey of Socrates is marked by a shift in, and deepening of, his understanding of causation.

7.  “It is no small thing that you seek, for the cause of generation and decay must be completely investigated.”  The understanding of ‘generation and decay,’ what I like to call ‘becoming and begoning’, shapes how someone will view various philosophical issues.  Socrates is diving deeper into the source of the misunderstanding that Cebes holds.

8.  As an aside, I spent a long time studying the Buddhist understanding of causation (Sanskrit: Pratityasamutpada, which in English is often referred to as Dependent Origination) and how it shapes virtually every significant doctrine of Buddhism.  This includes the Buddhist view of rebirth, no soul (anatman), emptiness, and the nature of the path and purification. 

In a similar way, the Platonist understanding of causation is a ground for many Platonist views.  If I were to contrast the two theories, I would say that the emanationist view of causation in Platonism is a vision of a primal, immaterial source from which all things emerge, both material and immaterial.  For this reason, Platonist spirituality is a ‘return to the One,’ a return to this primal source.  In contrast, the Buddhist understanding is that primal causation has no central source or focus; rather it is spread out through the cosmos like the nodes of a vast net.  For this reason Buddhist spirituality is about dissolution into emptiness.  (I realize that this is great simplification for both Platonism and Buddhism.)

9.  Socrates says that at first, when he was quite young, he was eager for the investigation into nature, searching for the causes of material things in material things.  In addition, he tried to give an account for how things came to be and how they disappeared (generation and corruption, becoming and begoning, appearing and disappearing).  (The discussion of this particular topic was taken up by Aristotle in his treatise ‘On Generation and Corruption’ or ‘On Coming to Be and Passing Away’; but I won’t be going into Aristotle’s treatise as it would make things too complicated and it has been many years since I read it.)

What Cebes is asking about is the coming to be and the passing away of the soul; that is why Socrates shifts the focus of the discussion to causation in general, as this will be the best way for Cebes to access what Socrates is saying.

10.  Socrates then shifts focus to more abstract considerations such as how numbers relate to each other and how two number 1’s can become the number 2.  In other words, Socrates moves from causation in a material context to causation in an abstract context.  Notice how much more puzzling the question of causation is when considering numbers and their relationships.  That is because numbers reside in the noetic sphere whereas material objects reside in the third hypostasis, the cyclic realm of soul.  I think Socrates is attempting to draw Cebes into noetic considerations to help him deepen his understanding of causation.  The soul is more like numbers than it is like material things.  Cebes has been treating the soul as if the soul were material, like rocks and clouds and trees and mountains.  These things come to be and pass away.  In contrast, numbers are immortal; they do not come to be and pass away.  Instantiations of numbers come to be and pass away, but numbers as such remain in the noetic sphere untouched by becoming and begoning.  By shifting the discussion to numbers and their relationships Socrate is inviting Cebes to see the difference.

11.  Socrates tells us how he used to relate to numbers and, as I read it, he was treating the instantiations of number as if they were numbers themselves.  This gives rise to confusion. 

The overall approach Socrates was taking at this time is what we would call ‘naturalism’ which is a type of materialism.  The view is that analysis of material things, what they are, how they come about, how they disappear, is a sufficient explanatory apparatus for everything that exists.  This is a view that is explicitly held by some materialists today, but it is clear that it has ancient roots. 

Platonism rejects naturalism as offering sufficient explanations for existing things, both material and abstract.  Lloyd P. Gerson, who led a team that translated the Enneads of Platonis, has written an entire book on this topic called Platonism and Naturalism: The Possibility of Philosophy. 

12.  Socrates concludes by saying that he is far from knowing the causes of any of these things and he no longer admits (or uses) this ‘method’ (of naturalism).  Instead, Socrates says he has a ‘confused’ method of his own.  I don’t know if Socrates is being kind to Cebes by making statements like these or if he is indicating that the method Socrates now uses is ‘confused’ if you look at it from the point of view of a naturalist or materialist.  I tend to the second, but I think patience and kindness also play a role at this point.

Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 29

2 September 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 29

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

“’But we must get to work,’ he (Socrates) said.  ‘First refresh my memory, if I seem to have forgotten anything.  Simmias, I think, has doubts and fears that the soul, though more divine and excellent than the body, may perish first, being of the nature of a harmony.  And, Cebes, I believe, granted that the soul is more lasting than the body, but said that no one could know that the soul, after wearing out many bodies, did not at last perish itself upon leaving the body; and that this was death – the destruction of the soul, since the body is continually being destroyed.  Are those the points, Simmias and Cebes, which we must consider?’

“They both agreed that these were the points.

“’Now,’ said he, ‘do you reject all of our previous arguments, or only some of them?’

“’Only some of them,’ they replied.

“’What do you think,’ he asked, ‘about the argument in which we said that learning is recollection and that, since this is so, our soul must necessarily have been somewhere before it was imprisoned in the body?’

“’I,’ said Cebes, ‘was wonderfully convinced by it at the time and I still believe it more firmly than any other argument.’

“’And I too,’ said Simmias, ’feel just as he does, and I should be much surprised if I should ever think differently on this point.’

“And Socrates said: ‘You must, my Theban friend, think differently, if you persist in your opinion that a harmony is a compound and that the soul is a harmony made up of the elements that are strung like harpstrings in the body.  For surely you will not accept your own statement that a composite harmony existed before those things from which it had to be composed, will you?’

“’Certainly not, Socrates.’

“’Then do you see,’ said he, ‘that this is just what you say when you assert that the soul exists before it enters into the form and body of a man, and that it is composed of things that do not yet exist?  For harmony is not what your comparison assumes it to be.  The lyre and the strings and the sounds come into being in a tuneless condition, and the harmony is the last of all to be composed and the first to perish.  So how can you bring this theory into harmony with the other?’

“’I cannot at all,’ said Simmias.

“’And yet,’ said Socrates, ‘there ought to be harmony between it and the theory about harmony above all others.’

“’Yes, there ought,’ said Simmias.

“’Well,’ said he, ‘there is no harmony between the two theories.  Now which do you prefer, that knowledge is recollection or that the soul is a harmony?’

“’The former, decidedly, Socrates,’ he replied.  ‘For this other came to me without demonstration; it merely seemed probably and attractive, which is the reason why many men hold it.  I am conscious that those arguments which base their demonstrations on mere probability are deceptive, and if we are not on our guard against them they deceive us greatly, in geometry and in all other things.  But the theory of recollection and knowledge has been established by a sound course of argument.  For we agreed that our soul before it entered into the body existed just as the very essence which is called the absolute exists.  Now I am persuaded that I have accepted this essence on sufficient and right grounds.  I cannot therefore accept from myself or anyone else the statement that the soul is a harmony.’

“’Here is another way of looking at it, Simmias,’ said he.  ‘Do you think a harmony or any other composite thing can be in any other state than that in which the elements are of which it is composed?’

“’Certainly not.’

“’And it can neither do nor suffer anything other than they do or suffer?’

“He agreed.

“’Then a harmony cannot be expected to lead the elements of which it is composed, but to follow them.’

“He assented.

“’A harmony, then, is quite unable to move or make a sound or do anything else that is opposed to its component parts.’

“’Quite unable,’ said he.

“’Well, then is not every harmony by nature a harmony according as it is harmonized?’

“’I do not understand,’ said Simmias.

“’Would it not,’ said Socrates, ‘be more completely a harmony and a greater harmony if it were harmonized more fully and to a greater extent, assuming that to be possible, and less completely a harmony and a lesser harmony if less completely harmonized and to a less extent?’

“’Certainly.’

“’Is this true of the soul?  Is one soul even in the slightest degree more completely and to a greater extent a soul than another, or less completely and to a less extent?’

“’Not in the least,’ said he.

“’Well now, said he, one soul is said to possess sense and virtue and to be good, and another to possess folly and wickedness and to be bad; and is this true?’

“’Yes, it is true.’

“’Now what will those who assume that the soul is a harmony say that these things – the virtue and the wickedness – in the soul are?  Will they say that this is another kind of harmony and a discord, and that the soul, which is itself a harmony, has within it another harmony and that the other soul is discordant and has no other harmony within it?’

“’I cannot tell,’ replied Simmias, ‘but evidently those who make that assumption would say something of that sort.’

“’But we agreed, said Socrates, ‘that oen soul is no more or less a soul than another; and that is equivalent to an agreement that one is no more and to no greater extent, and no less and to no less extent, a harmony than another, is it not?’

“’Certainly.’

“’And that which is not more or less a harmony, is no more or less harmonized.  Is that so?’

“’Yes.’

“’But has that which is no more and no less harmonized any greater or any less amount of harmony, or an equal amount?’

“’An equal amount.’

“’Then a soul, since it is neither more nor less a soul than another, is neither more nor less harmonized.’

“’That is so.’

“’And therefore can have no greater amount of discord or of harmony?’

“’No.’

“’And therefore again one soul can have no greater amount of wickedness or virtue than another, if wickedness is discord and virtue harmony?’

“’It cannot.’

“’Or rather, to speak exactly, Simmias, no soul will have any wickedness at all, if the soul is a harmony; for if a harmony is entirely harmony, it could have no part in discord.’

“’Certainly not.’

“’Then the soul, being entirely soul, could have no part in wickedness.’

“’How could it, if what we have said is right?’

“’According to this argument, then, if all souls are by nature equally souls, all souls of all living creatures will be equally good.’

“’So it seems, Socrates,’ said he.

“’And,’ said Socrates, ‘do you think that this is true and that our reasoning would have come to this end, if the theory that the soul is a harmony were correct?’

“’Not in the least,’ he replied.

“’Well,’ said Socrates, ‘of all the parts that make up a man, do you think any is ruler except the soul, especially if it be a wise one?’

“’No, I do not.’

“’Does it yield to the feelings of the body or oppose them.  I mean, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul oppose it and draw it away from drinking, and from eating when it is hungry, and do we not see the soul opposing the body in countless other ways?’

“’Certainly.’

“’Did we not agree in our previous discussion that it could never, if it be a harmony, give forth a sound at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other conditions of the elements which compose it, but that it would follow them and never lead them?’

“’Yes,’ he replied, ‘we did, of course.’

“’Well then, do we not now find that the soul acts in exactly the opposite way, leading those elements of which it is said to consist and opposing them in almost everything through all our life, and tyrannizing over them in every way, sometimes inflicting harsh and painful punishments (those of gymnastics and medicine), and sometimes milder ones, sometimes threatening and sometimes admonishing, in short, speaking to the desires and passions and fears as if it were distinct from them and they from it, as Homer has shown in the Odyssey when he says of Odysseus: 

            He smote his breast, and thus he chid his heart:

            “Endure it, heart, thou didst bear worse than this”?

            (Footnote: Odyssey xx, 17, 18, Bryant’s translation.)

Do you suppose that, when he wrote those words, he thought of the soul as a harmony which would be led by the conditions of the body, and not rather as something fitted to lead and rule them, and itself a far more divine thing than a harmony?’

“’By Zeus, Socrates, the latter, I think.’

“’Then, my good friend, it will never do for us to say that the soul is a harmony; for we should, it seems, agree neither with Homer, the divine poet, nor with ourselves.’

“’That is true,’ said he.”

(Ibid, Fowler, pages 315 – 327, 91C-95A)

1.  It feels to me like Socrates has taken a focused and serious turn in this section.  Perhaps Socrates has become a bit exasperated and wants to bring the discussion to some kind of conclusion.

2.  The exchange in this section is focused on two arguments that represent two contrasting views of the soul; the first is the idea that the soul is a harmony of parts.  The lyre is used as an analogy to anchor this view of soul.  The second is the teaching that learning is recollection and that the soul is the vehicle for recollection; this implies that the soul does not consist of parts and is not a harmony.  Instead the soul is depicted in this argument as having a certain function; that function is that soul is the vehicle that provides a sense of continuity throughout a single life as well as from life to life.  That continuity is revealed through recollection.

3.  Beneath the recollection argument is the understanding of the cyclic nature of the third hypostasis, or material existence.  The World Soul is the progenitor of cyclic existence, aided by number.  The individual soul participates in this cyclic world of becoming and begoning, but begins to transcend becoming and begoning through recollection of experiences in higher hypostases that occur between lives.

4.  As I understand the critique Socrates offers of the soul as a harmony, it is based on the idea that harmony is an emergent quality of the parts of the lyre being put together properly.  The harmony of a lyre is causally dependent upon the parts of the lyre so that the harmony has no self-sufficiency.

5.  Socrates systematically draws out the implications of the view that the soul is a harmony for Simmias, pushing Simmias to consider these implications.  These include the idea that the soul could have no part in wickedness, and that all souls would be equally good.  Socrates concludes this series of pointed questions with, “. . . do you think that this is true and that our reasoning would have come to this end, if the theory that the soul is a harmony were correct?”  And Simmias responds, “Not in the least,” meaning that the consequences of the harmony theory of the soul are ‘not in the least true.’

6.  All that is good in material existence comes from the Good, the ultimately transcendental.  Human beings who are fixated on material existence abandon the Good and become, by that fixation on materiality, inclined to engage in various negative acts of which there are a depressing wide range and large number from petty ethical faults to behavior that is starkly evil.  When human beings turn to the soul, they discover the source of that which is good in life, that which guides us to do good, which is found in its purity in the Good and the One of the first hypostasis.  But constant contact with materiality, and allowing material desires to govern our activity, can alter the soul so that instead of the soul being a guide to the Good, it becomes the facilitator of desires, turning the soul into something ‘wicked.’

As Socrates says, “Does it (the soul) yield to the feelings of the body or oppose them?”  In a way we could say that the question for the Platonist is ‘Who is in charge of my life?  Is it the body who is in charge, or is it the soul who is in charge?’  The body should be the servant of the soul (as Socrates says, the soul is a kind of ‘ruler’).  But for many people it is the body who is the ruler and the soul has become a servant; or perhaps more accurately, the soul is in a kind of sleep.

7.  What is the nature of the connection between the individual soul and the Good?  Because the Good is beyond name and form, beyond affirmation and negation, it is not easy to illuminate this topic.  I think only analogies, metaphors, similes, and allegories work in this context.  There are classic analogies that are useful; one of these is how the light of the moon is reflected in countless bodies of water, from a pond to a drop of rain.  In this analogy the soul resembles a body of water that absorbs the light of the Good, reflects the light of the Good, in a manner that makes a good life accessible to human beings.

Another analogy is how rain will nourish all living things, falling upon the just and the unjust alike.  In this analogy the soul is that which is nourished by the good rain falling upon it.

The soul is like an ancient, or better, eternal book that lies within the heart and mind of every human being.  It is the same book for everyone.  When we are distracted by material appearances, the book is closed.  When we turn to this book, and begin to read its pages, we recollect, through the book’s instructions, our transcendental home and we come in touch with the possibility of living a life based on the Good.

8.  Socrates instructs us on the nature of the soul by emphasizing how the soul consistently opposes the tendency of the body to indulge in materiality.  For Socrates, it is the soul that acts as a guide reminding us not to indulge in material excesses.  It is the soul that curtails what we might today call ‘addictive’ behavior that we intellectually know is harmful, but that we cannot control by relying on material causes and conditions.  It is only through the soul, because of its association with the Good, that we can break free of those kinds of behaviors.

9.  As an aside, I think this section of Phaedo is another example of the intimate connection between the soul and the higher hypostases such as Mind/Intellect and the Good.  In terms of developments in late classical Platonism, which appeared after Plotinus and Porphyry, and their view that the soul has no direct access to higher hypostases, passages like this, I think, strongly undermine that view.

10.  The section concludes with Socrates stating that the soul is ‘divine’.  The divine nature of the soul is its everpresent connection with the Good and the One.  And it is this connection that provides human beings with the means for transcending this world of cyclic sorrow. 

Socrates further states that the soul is a kind of ‘ruler’ that is fit to lead us to that which is divine.  This kind of relationship develops over time, I think.  It takes time because we have developed the habit of acquiescing to the demands and inclinations of the body and of material ‘satisfaction.’  In a way you could see the soul as being like a muscle that has atrophied so that when we first use it, it is not very effective.  

My observation is that when people make their first conscious contact with the soul it can be more than a little baffling; I mean that people often don’t know what to do with such an experience.  This is because they are unfamiliar with it.  But trust builds up over time, and the soul has eternity to perform its task and function.  As one becomes more familiar with the soul, which is accomplished through ascesis, purifications, and especially contemplation, our sense of trust in what the soul has to offer takes root and finally becomes stable.  We recognize the soul’s light in every body of water, we discover the source of this light in the moon, and eventually we move to the source of the light of the moon; the sun of wisdom and eternity, the true peace of the One, the Good and the Beautiful.