Plato, Phaedo
SOCRATES LAST DAY IN PRISON WHERE HE
TALKS WITH FRIENDS ABOUT THE
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
Outline
 Prison Scene & opening conversation – 57-61d
 The Philosopher’s attitude toward death – 61d-69e
 Immortality
- argument from reciprocal processes 69e-72e
 - argument from recollection 72e-77c
 - relation of body to soul 77c-84c
Objections to Immortality
 - soul may not be an attunement 84c-86d
 - durability is not immortality 86d-88d
Interlude in which faith in conversation is affirmed 88d-91c
Answers to Objections
 Soul is not an attunement 91c-95a
 Theory of Forms 95a-107a
Myth of Paradise and the destination of souls 107a-114d
Evening in the prison 114d 
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Prison scene and opening conversation
 Distancing devices
 Delay of Socrates execution – The sacred trip to
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Delos
Socrates’ calm and contentment
Pleasure and pain
Dislike of exaggerated emotion – Apollodorus and
Xanthippe (his wife)
Poetry writing and telling stories
Cebes and Simmias both Pythagorean philosphers
The philosopher’s attitude toward death and the
illegitimacy of suicide
 The Philosopher welcomes death, but does not
instigate his own (61).
 We are the property of the gods: they would be
angered and would likely punish you for destroying
their property (62c).
 We should welcome death: (i) we are in the god’s
protection (62d); we will visit with the gods and good
men after death (63b-c); philosophy is a practicing
for death – escape from the body
 “True philosophers are nearly dead … and deserve to
be…” (64c).
Body vs. soul
 Death is the separation of body and soul (64).
 The philosopher is interested in the pleasures of the soul,
not the body (65).
 In fact, the philosopher dislikes the body since it
misleads us and is a hindrance to knowledge acquisition
(65b-d).
 The Just Itself, the Beautiful Itself, the Good Itself (i.e.,
their Forms) cannot be sensed by the body and can be
accessed only through the mind alone (65e-66a)
 Death as the separation of soul from body is, then, when
we are most likely to learn (67a-c).
Nature of Forms (65dff)
 Absolute (not relative)
 Immaterial
 Really Real – the essence of a thing
 Rationalism vs. empiricism
Reciprocal Processes (70a-72e) or the Argument
from Opposites
 Cebes’ worry: the soul disperses upon the death of the body.
 Socrates’ ‘story’: “… souls arriving there come from here, and then again
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they arrive here and are born again from the dead” (70c).
1. All things come to be from their opposite states: for example, something
that comes to be “larger” must necessarily have been “smaller” before (70e71a).
2. Between every pair of opposite states there are two opposite processes:
for example, between the pair “smaller” and “larger” there are the processes
“increase” and “decrease” (71b).
3. If the two opposite processes did not balance each other out, everything
would eventually be in the same state: for example, if increase did not
balance out decrease, everything would keep becoming smaller and smaller
(72b).
4. Since “being alive” and “being dead” are opposite states, and “dying” and
“coming-to-life” are the two opposite processes between these states,
coming-to-life must balance out dying (71c-e).
5. Therefore, everything that dies must come back to life again (72a).
Reciprocal Processes: Possible Problems
 Impersonal vs. personal immortality. Soul separates
from our body (which disperses) at death. It then
returns to a different body. Is this still us? Are ‘we’
immortal?
 Does the principle about balance in (3), for instance,
necessarily apply to living things? Couldn’t all life
simply cease to exist at some point, without
returning?
 How do we account for increases or decreases in
population. The world now has ~ 7 billion people: in
400BCE, it had ~ 125 million.
Reciprocal Processes: Possible Problems
 Contradictory qualities vs. contrary ones
 In a first sense, it is used for “comparatives” such as larger
and smaller (and also the pairs weaker/stronger and
swifter/slower at 71a), opposites which admit of various
degrees and which even may be present in the same object at
once (on this latter point, see 102b-c). However, Socrates also
refers to “being alive” and “being dead” as opposites—but this
pair is rather different from comparative states such as larger
and smaller, since something can’t be deader, but only
dead. Being alive and being dead are what logicians call
“contraries” (as opposed to “contradictories,” such as “alive”
and “not-alive,” which exclude any third possibility). With
this terminology in mind, some contemporary commentators
have maintained that the argument relies on covertly shifting
between these different kinds of opposites.
Argument from Recollection (72e-77c)
 Cebes references slave boy example. Socrates then
adds a different sort of recollection where we look at
one thing, and it causes us to think (or recollect)
something different. E.g., your lover’s lyre makes you
think of her (associationism). This wouldn’t happen
if you didn’t recollect the two together. Socrates
elaborates on this to discuss recollecting immaterial
Forms.
Argument from Recollection
 1. Things in the world which appear to be equal in
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measurement are in fact deficient in the equality they possess
(74b, d-e).
2. Therefore, they are not the same as true equality, that is,
“the Equal itself” (74c).
3. When we see the deficiency of the examples of equality, it
helps us to think of, or “recollect,” the Equal itself (74c-d).
4. In order to do this, we must have had some prior knowledge
of the Equal itself (74d-e).
5. Since this knowledge does not come from sense-perception,
we must have acquired it before we acquired senseperception, that is, before we were born (75b ff.).
6. Therefore, our souls must have existed before we were
born. (76d-e)
Argument from Recollection: Possible Problems
 This argument is an improvement over what was offered
in the Meno because it does offer some explanation of
knowledge acquisition in another life (when freed from
distractions of the body)
 The argument is dependent, as Simmias says, on the
theory of Reality provided by the Forms (76e-77a). Note
that there is very little argument to support this theory.
 Simmias’ arg.: Socrates’ arg. is only half complete: it
shows that the soul must exist before birth but not that it
exists after death (which is the major concern).
 Socrates’ response: use this arg. jointly with reciprocal
processes and his next arg. on the soul/body relation
Relation of Body to Soul (or the affinity
argument)
 Overview: an inductive argument – the properties of
Forms are like the properties of the soul in many
respects. Since one of the properties of the Forms is
that they are everlasting, it is likely that the soul is
everlasting as well.
 Induction vs. deduction
 Note that this argument is intended to establish only
the probability of the soul’s continued existence after
the death of the body—“what kind of thing,” Socrates
asks at the outset, “is likely to be scattered [after the
death of the body]?” (78b; my italics)
Affinity argument
 1. There are two kinds of existences: (a) the visible world that
we perceive with our senses, which is human, mortal,
composite, unintelligible, and always changing, and (b) the
invisible world of Forms that we can access solely with our
minds, which is divine, deathless, intelligible, non-composite,
and always the same (78c-79a, 80b).
 2. The soul is more like world (b), whereas the body is more
like world (a) (79b-e).
 3. Therefore, supposing it has been freed of bodily influence
through philosophical training, the soul is most likely to make
its way to world (b) when the body dies (80d-81a). (If,
however, the soul is polluted by bodily influence, it likely will
stay bound to world (a) upon death (81b-82b).)
Two worlds view
 The World of the Senses The World of Forms
 Composites (ie, things with parts)
Non-composites
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 Things that never remain the same
Things that always remain the
 from one moment to the next same same and don’t tolerate any
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change
 Any particular thing that is equal,
 beautiful, and so forth
 That which is visible
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The Equal, the Beautiful, and what
each thing is in itself
That which is grasped by the mind
and invisible
Reasons to become a philosopher
 Those tied to the body will suffer at death: roam as
ghosts – become ‘bad’ animals in next reincarnation
 Those tied to the mind will spend the next life with
the gods – have access to Forms, come to acquire
knowledge
 Death for philosophers the release out of the prison
of the body
Objections: The Soul is an attunement
Simmias
 Analogy b/w relation of soul to body and music to
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guitar (or lyre)
Soul and music – harmony, more divine, invisible
Body and guitar– material, visible
But the music is dependent on the physical guitar:
Once it ends, so does the music
Similarly for the soul. It ends when the physical body
ends
Pythagorean theory: the soul as a force which keeps
the body together but has no independent existence
Objections: durability is not = to immortality
Cebes
 Unlike Simmias, Cebes believes the soul survives death, but…
 Analogy to a coat and its owner: Just as a person may survive
many coats in their lifetime, a soul may survive the death of
many bodies.
 But this speaks to the greater durability of people and souls
over coats and bodies, not their immortality. Perhaps
people/souls can wear out.
 Hence, to not fear death, we need an argument that the soul is
not damaged by many births and deaths and is immortal, not
just durable.
 Heraclitean theory where change is omnipresent: The soul
remakes the body but, like the person/tailor, dies/changes at
come point..
Interlude: The restoration of faith in conversation
 Misology and misanthropy analogy.
 We shouldn’t hate all people because one whom we
have put our faith in has disappointed us. More
experience of people and better judgment on our
part will allow us to separate the good from the bad
and not think all are bad.
 Similarly don’t loose faith in arguments because one
we believed in has led us astray. We must be more
vigilant to discern good from bad arguments, not
drop argumentation altogether.
Responses to Simmias (91e – 95a)
 Method of Hypothesis (again). They are all willing to
accept the theory of Recollection (and with it the
Theory of Forms).
 Given this, Socrates makes three arguments against
Simmias’ theory
 First argument
 If the soul exists before (and hence independently of)
the body, then the soul can’t be dependent on the
body, and can’t be the harmony of the body.
Responses to Simmias (91e – 95a)
 Second argument
 (1) No soul is any more a soul than another soul. I.e., there are no
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degrees of ‘soulness’
(2) However, souls do differ in their virtue; some are good, others are
not.
(3) Simmias’ theory is that a soul is an attunement or harmony.
(4) They agree on this account that a good soul is like an instrument in
tune (or harmony). A bad soul is like a soul out of tune (or in
disharmony).
(5) This creates an inconsistency since (4) with (3) implies some souls
are more souls than others while (1) maintains that this can’t be.
Hence, the soul is not a harmony
Responses to Simmias (91e – 95a)
 Third argument
 (1) if the soul is never out of tune with its component parts (as shown at
93a), then it seems like it could never oppose these parts.
 (2) But in fact it does the opposite: i.e., the soul is capable of opposing
and governing our component parts – such as emotions and appetites.
E.g., “ruling over all the elements of which one says it is composed,
opposing nearly all of them throughout life, directing all their ways,
inflicting harsh and painful punishment on them, . . . holding converse
with desires and passions and fears, as if it were one thing talking to a
different one . . .” (94c9-d5). A passage in Homer, wherein Odysseus
beats his breast and orders his heart to endure, strengthens this picture
of the opposition between soul and bodily emotions.
 Therefore, the soul isn’t an attunement or a harmony.
Review of Socrates’ response to Simmias
 In the three arguments against Simmias’ thesis that
the soul is an attunement or harmony, Socrates
makes the following 4 points:
 (1) the soul can exist before the body is made, (2)
there are no degrees of soul like there are degrees of
attunement, (3) if the attunement argument were
correct, it would imply that no souls were better or
worse than any other souls, and (4) the soul is
master of the body.
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 This requires “a thorough investigation of the cause of
generation and destruction” (96a)
 Socrates’ Intellectual History (96a-102a)
 Intrigue as a youth with natural sciences: material and
efficient causes. (Growth as the addition of some material
thing – we get taller ‘by a head’.
 Led to confusion. How does 1+1=2? Simply brought
together? How is it that when one is divided in two, the
reason for its becoming two is the division. In the first case,
one becomes two through addition, in the second case, one
becomes two through division: how can both addition and
division be the reasons for one becoming two?
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 Anaxagoras – Mind – but just another materialist
 No final cause – the purpose for Socrates sitting here
is that he believes it is improper to run away, etc.
(teleology).
 Necessary vs. sufficient conditions. Material and
efficient causes may be necessary but not sufficient
for full explanations.
 Socrates’ own method: Hypothesis. Start with what
we know best and see what follows from that
assumption.
 The Theory of Forms is what we know best.
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 Participating in Forms best explains
causation/change. E.g., A person becomes taller by
participating in the Form of Tallness and 1 + 1 = 2 by
1 participating in the Form of Duality (or Twoness).
Similarly dividing 1 into 2 is done by participating in
the Form of Duality as well.
 How? Perhaps this explains being, i.e., how things
are, but it doesn’t seem to explain becoming. How
(or why?) does something stop participating in
Shortness (or Singularity) to participate in Tallness
(or Duality)?
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 Plato explains the causal relationship between Forms
and objects in the world by saying that things
participate in the Forms.
 Three explanations for this:
 (1) Forms as paradigms: Forms are the perfect
instance of whatever they represent. For instance,
the Form of Justice is the paradigm of justice, the
one, most perfect instance of justice in this world. All
other things that are just are just only insofar as they
emulate, or are similar to, this Form of Justice.
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 (2) Forms as universals: Forms are that which all
instances of the Form have in common. The Form of
Justice is that quality which all just people have in
common. According to this interpretation, one
participates in the Form of Justice by sharing in that
quality of justice.
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 (3) Forms as stuffs: Forms are distributed
throughout the world. The Form of Justice, under
this interpretation, is not some separate thing, but is
rather the sum total of all the instances of justice that
we might find in the world. There is a little bit of
justice in me, there is a little bit of justice in you, and
if we were to gather all these little bits of justice
together, we would have the Form of Justice. Thus,
each one of us participates in the Form of Justice by
having a bit of the Form in us, like sharing a small
piece of a very big pie.
Response to Cebes (95a – 107b)
 1. Nothing can become its opposite while still being itself: it either flees
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away or is destroyed at the approach of its opposite. (For example,
“tallness” cannot become “shortness”) (102d-103a)
2. This is true not only of opposites, but in a similar way of things that
contain opposites. (For example, “fire” and “snow” are not themselves
opposites, but “fire” always brings “hot” with it, and “snow” always
brings “cold” with it. So “fire” will not become “cold” without ceasing to
be “fire,” nor will “snow” become “hot” without ceasing to be “snow.”)
(103c-105b)
3. The “soul” always brings “life” with it. (105c-d)
4. Therefore “soul” will never admit the opposite of “life,” that is,
“death,” without ceasing to be “soul.” (105d-e)
5. But what does not admit death is also indestructible. (105e-106d)
 6. Therefore, the soul is
indestructible. (106e-107a)
Objections considered and answered
 When someone objects that premise (1) contradicts his earlier
statement (at 70d-71a) about opposites arising from one another,
Socrates responds that then he was speaking of things with opposite
properties, whereas here is talking about the opposites
themselves. Careful readers will distinguish three different ontological
items at issue in this passage:
 (a) the thing (for example, Simmias) that participates in a Form (for
example, that of Tallness), but can come to participate in the opposite
Form (of Shortness) without thereby changing that which it is (namely,
Simmias) (Tallness is not an essential or necessary property of
Simmias.)
 (b) the Form (for example, of Tallness), which cannot admit its
opposite (Shortness)
 (c) the Form-in-the-thing (for example, the tallness in Simmias), which
cannot admit its opposite (shortness) without fleeing away of being
destroyed
Objections considered and answered
 Premise (2) introduces another item:
 (d) a kind of entity (for example, fire) that, even though it does not
share the same name as a Form, always participates in that Form (for
example, Hotness), and therefore always excludes the opposite Form
(Coldness) wherever it (fire) exists. Essential or necessary properties vs.
accidental or incidental properties
 This new kind of entity puts Socrates beyond the “safe answer” given
before (at 100d) about how a thing participates in a Form. His new,
“more sophisticated answer” is to say that what makes a body hot is not
heat—the safe answer—but rather an entity such as fire. In like
manner, what makes a body sick is not sickness but fever, and what
makes a number odd is not oddness but oneness (105b-c). Premise (3)
then states that the soul is this sort of entity with respect to the Form of
Life. And just as fire always brings the Form of Hotness and excludes
that of Coldness, the soul will always bring the Form of Life with it and
exclude its opposite.
Objections considered and answered
 However, one might wonder about premise (5). Even
though fire, to return to Socrates’ example, does not admit
Coldness, it still may be destroyed in the presence of
something cold—indeed, this was one of the alternatives
mentioned in premise (1). Similarly, might not the soul,
while not admitting death, nonetheless be destroyed by its
presence? Socrates tries to block this possibility by
appealing to what he takes to be a widely shared
assumption, namely, that what is deathless is also
indestructible: “All would agree . . . that the god, and the
Form of Life itself, and anything that is deathless, are never
destroyed” (107d). For readers who do not agree that such
items are deathless in the first place, however, this sort of
appeal is unlikely to be acceptable.
Myth of Paradise and destination of souls
(107c-115a)
 (1) the judgment of the dead souls and their
subsequent journey to the underworld (107d-108c)
 (2) the shape of the earth and its regions (108c-113c)
 (3) the punishment of the wicked and the reward of
the pious philosophers (113d-114c)
Myth of Paradise and destination of souls
(107c-115a)
 When people die, those who lived a neutral life set
out for Acheron, and spend a certain period of time
in the underworld, where they are punished for their
sins and rewarded for their good deeds, and then are
returned to the earth once more. Those who have
been irredeemably wicked are hurled into Tartarus,
never to return. Those who have been good, however,
ascend to the true surface of the earth, and those
who have completely purified themselves through
philosophy will live without a body altogether, and
will reach places indescribably more beautiful even
than the true surface of the earth.
Socrates’ Death (115a-118a)
 No need to postpone things (by drinking poison later
and ‘partying’ until the end).
 Gentle Death
 Prayer at the end.
 “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering
to him and do not forget.” Death as a cure for the
sickness of life?