Introduction of the Phaedo’s doctrine
The understanding of rationalism of Plato’s Socrates, no doubt provide reasons to believe in the assertive character of Socratic doctrine. But there exists a gap that further requires a bridgeable chasm between the intelligible order and the corporeal, contingent world of our experience, the world which was supposed to be explained by Plato logically. Since some leftover philosophical understandings witness and even raise questions about the immortality of the soul, our aim in this paper is to analyze those issues that still need an explanation about the immortality of the soul.
Immortality is mainly concerned with the issue of birth and death, such a construction of mortality in terms of an antagonistic struggle as a dialogue conflicts with biblical and classical antecedents. Immortality can be understood as a process that starts and can be imagined after death as if it were the opposite of life, as dark is thought of as the opposite of light when it is simply the other’s absence. That indicates to us that life and death are opposites of each other and the argument of whether a soul is immortal or not, cannot be further taken into consideration without considering the true meaning of mortality.
Mortality from a religious perspective applies to God’s existence. Though the human is indeed moral and immortality is the characteristic only associated with God, philosophers like Plato see it as a component of human existence. Therefore, Plato believes that human bodies are mortal as they taste death but their souls are divine. This view is incorrect from the very first hypothesis that souls are immortal. Since human is the creation of God and we know that God is the creator, how can the creation be equal to a creator? This doctrine is evident from the conception of the soul that remains dominant in Phaedo because it differs from Christian belief (Gallop, 1999, p. xviii).
Platonic dialogues in Phaedo suggest that true recollection is limited to philosophers. This can be true because only a philosopher dares to provide a logical ground for accepting a theory grounded in the knowledge of the human situation. Socrates provides adequate reasoning for such limitations by stating that the knowledge we gain through the recognition of our views requires logical reasoning.
Without this reasoning, it lacks the perfect wisdom necessary to ascend toward such a comprehensive view of self-understanding knowledge of ourselves and our relation to nature as a whole (Stern, 1993, p. 5). Plato does it correctly but literature reveals to us that as a philosopher, Plato is unable to receive any critical comment on his theories. For example, Plato thinks dogmatically about the divinity of the soul and is unable to face any critics rejecting his notion.
This might be the way how a philosopher acquires that ‘perfect’ wisdom that answers all of his questions that reside in his inner consciousness, and that can substantiate philosophy as a way of life. Such wisdom is useless to a common man who is limited to materialism and lacks the wisdom to see his inner self-understanding that constitutes and provides the ground of Socratic rationalism in the sense of serving as a criterion for knowledge.
Socratic interpretation does not rest on some implausible cosmic meaning that a common man finds difficult to accept. Nor does it point towards those difficulties, which a common man is unable to resolve by abandoning rationalism. It begins with self-understanding and proves that many aspects of humanity need to be explored and rationally exemplified by the questions surrounding our mortality, that seem to resist rational scrutiny.
Confronting challenges while criticizing a philosophy is an act that requires temperament to understand why one dialogue that directs the primary effort of interpretation toward explaining the coherency rejects the other? For example, the defects a common man perceives in the face of what are widely agreed to be the Phaedo’s defective arguments for immortality, are not defects to a philosopher. Similarly, when it comes to dialogue initiation between two philosophers, critics suggest that they plausibly interpret each other.
However, any interpretation throughout Phaedo must have also explained why Plato chooses to convey his understanding through such roundabout means. Such roundabouts do not conform to the logical grounds of a philosopher like Plato to argue insufficiently on the immortality of the human soul.
In order to judge Plato’s development, we can differentiate Plato’s arguments from what we think about immortality, based on the cyclical argument, an argument from recollection, and the affinity argument. Finally, interpreting and thereafter proving Plato as a product of his developmental context is to let our minds open to grasp the philosophical knowledge, which is beyond understanding for a common man. Such understanding or knowledge requires from us the evidence either to support or to contravene such interpretations by proving interpretive principles that would otherwise deny the ultimate significance of Plato’s work from the start..
Cyclical Argument
The cyclical argument is the character of opposites which is presented in Socrates’ first speech and runs throughout the Phaedo. Though a good effort by Plato proves the notion of opposition along with the thought of how our life is governed by a series of opposites, then what about the states that incur in between the opposites? This is not clearly proven by Plato that what about the cyclical argument that does not provoke two opposite states, instead it only provokes the mediocre.
That means, the loophole exists there in the argument that only perceives superior or inferior things or we can say, it only considers two extremes of the same situation, what about if the situation is not extreme at all? Or it does not involve the extremities that according to Plato prove to be equal from opposite sides. Such visible things follow a particular standard of equality, and by no means are identical except for the opposites (Gallop, 1999, p. xiii).
Bostock (1986) states that the main problem with this dialogue accepts the definition of dying as the separating of opposites as soul and body, but asks to be shown that when the soul does separate from the body it is not destroyed but continues to exist with some ‘power and wisdom’ (Bostock, 1986, p. 42). We can also suggest one more condition that when a man is dying, what logically proves that his soul has entered divinity?
The argument reflects a cyclical theme that is based on the notion that reverse and inverse are the two characteristics of the human body and soul. These characteristics are depicted by our existence both here and in the afterlife. Further, they are cast in terms of life versus death, body versus soul, corporeal things versus incorporeal ideas (Stern, 1993, p. 19). What Phaedo actually supports is the view expressed by thinkers as Nietzsche and Heidegger that the Platonic world revolves around a mortal and immortal school of thought. Socrates’ first argument manifests that these oppositions of being mortal and immortal exist also within human beings.
If we consider for a while what constitutes death, we get a clear answer that since man performs his role in context with different age groups, he gets old. This is the divisible identity that in the form of bodily counterparts is suggested by Gerson (2004) by stating that as the divisible identity and bodily differences are reflected in a human body, the soul’s immortality must also have been visible to note changes possessed by fundamental data of a theory of form (Gerson, 2004).
A rational explanation of such a unified account concerning human existence can be proved by some of the basic concepts that are not unusual to a common man. As we all know everything in this world has an opposite, and as the proof continues, we can consider the following examples – man and woman, beautiful and ugly, wealth and poverty, sleep and awake, and so on. Now, if we perceive invisible things, they also have opposites like in the case of emotions, love and hatred, trust and mistrust, fair and unfair. Such contraries mentioned by Socrates also hold certain characteristics within them that the denial of one does not necessarily entail the other.
For example, take something that is not beautiful, it does necessarily have to demonstrate the characteristics of being ugly. Opposites that incur in between two extremities are not necessarily fulfilled the view that opposites always translate into one another and are called comparatives. So, the most obvious loophole that has remained in the cyclical argument asks us to verify those two extents, that are not opposites, like neither beautiful nor ugly, neither love nor hatred – just friendship and so on.
However, in many cases, opposites translate into one another, and with this refinement of the principle established, we can perceive that Socrates is correct in bringing the principle to bear on the relevant opposites, life and death, sleeping and being awake, along with the reciprocal processes of going to sleep and waking up as analogous to the opposites life and death (Stern, 1993, p. 54). We can say that oppositions are within human beings that do compete and strive for a good that transcends them and thereby mediate and preserve resistance among themselves as well as between themselves and the divine (Michelini, 2003, p. 41).
The good or bad that remains within human beings also follow a process of opposition, like at the same time man can think and act. That means he has two dimensions, the invisible or the inner consciousness that is responsible for his good or bad deeds, and the physical actions that depict his evil or good nature. When a body dies, the soul remains, as a reaction to fulfill the nature of the opposition, thereafter the soul remains to be immortal. However, a rationalistic school of thought opposes such a notion because nothing remains as everything in the world is mortal.
Argument from Recollection
Recollection is the most complex argument because it aims to present before us the notion that we existed before birth, and this could be elaborated from the fact that if we know something, it is not because it is learned after birth, rather it is due to the reason that we knew it before birth. The knowledge that is recollected after birth is proof that the soul was in existence before it took its shape in the body. Again, such a perspective from Plato lacks appropriate reasoning to prove this happens. For example, rational thinking does not allow us to accept theories in a void, they must have a logical background to make the audience understand.
The theory of recollection in Phaedo serves as a principle for ‘learning’ or ‘gaining’ knowledge of prenatal existence that already contains deep insights into the cognitive powers of the mind (Gallop, 1999, xviii). One can also deny that real cognitive influence of mind allows or disallows learning or it denies the coincidence of ‘already knowing’ in vain. Many critics suggest that Socrates has presented the concept of recollection by pulling it in one direction by creating the need to show that philosophers alone have access to truth and the Forms.
The other direction that is not discussed by Socrates is the need to confirm immortality as a basic property of every human soul (Michelini, 2003, p. 12). I disagree with what critics claim because of a basic rule of thumb to prove recollection is a characteristic of the human soul. If we are capable of grasping a particular concept say X, and we acquire it at time Y, that indicates that we already knew X (Phaedo, 2009). This can also be illustrated by the fact that when X senses Y, he has equated Y because he already knew that Y cannot be unequated.
This illustration does not highlight that if we knew something before birth, we simply recollect it after being born because when we were not in the world, our souls were there. Such negation is due to the fact that since the human mind is in a continuous process of learning, it does so throughout his life, i.e., from birth till death it only acquires, therefore there is no use of claiming recollection, except for a genuine reason which the philosophy lacks.
Plato belittles writing as a means for philosophical thinking and interprets the process of recollection on the domain of virtue (Morgan, 1998). Morgan (1998) proves it by categorizing humanity into good and bad. Good people prefer to do virtuous deeds while on the contrary bad people can’t help doing evil acts. This is no doubt a valid argument supporting recollection, but what if good changes and decides to turn into evil or vice versa. This is so because human nature is unpredictable to turn over a new leaf and does not allow a single state of mind. That means a human being is changeable and modifiable according to the situation and circumstances.
Bad people are reluctant to understand ‘new’ concepts easily, but once they decide to transform themselves, no power on earth can stop them. Similarly, those who possess philosophical and sensible minds are able to distinguish between good and evil easily and so they succumb to utilizing their inner consciousness for recollection. Parry (2007) states that Plato’s dualism of mind or inner consciousness and body is reflected in being intelligent and wise enough to grasp new philosophies easily (Parry, 2007).
Affinity Argument
This argument directly escorts us to believe in the pre-existing nature of the soul, and by itself, it gives us no particular reason to suppose that the soul will go on existing after its present life. The main problem with the argument from recollection is that even if for a while we accept that the soul existed before worldly life, it still does not prove that it will continue to live after physical death, and since man is physically mortal, how can he claim to survive after death?
But in order to attempt to prove once again the soul’s immortality, we consider Plato’s view to argue that the soul is not the kind of thing that would be expected to dissolve after death, which means we have to somehow prove that the soul is immortal.
When Socrates draws a distinction between material and immaterial objects, he initiates the argument of affinity that states that non-composite things and forms are permanent. Things that seem to remain the same or follow the same state are most often non-composite whereas sensible or visible things never remain in the same state. So is the human body that passes through many critical stages to end up or dissolve, these include infancy, childhood, youth and old age. Since the human body is a visible thing that is sensible to take cause and effect of other things, it reacts to all-natural phenomenon making it subject to becoming perishable. On the other hand, being that the soul is invisible, we can assume that it is also indissoluble and it remains immortal among other immaterial objects.
Though we can assume that the soul is invisible, we cannot claim that the soul never changes or remains in the same form. The dialogue conducted between Ahrensdorf and Socrates in Phaedo reflects how and why Socrates’ carries the view that the human soul is immortal and that our embodied human existence is the place where the philosophical life is lived out, not some transcendent reality in which perfect wisdom exists (Gordon, 1998).
Vallega (2006) writes that Plato refers to the knowledge of the intuited world which possesses the ability to be turned to knowledge of the purely structural, and in this sense, human life through critical conceptual knowledge may be a passage toward the eternal (Vallega, 2006). This might be true as far as intuition is concerned because it is this intuition that Plato refers to prove as recollection, that we logically explain. These arguments indicate the primary difference between the school of thought of an ordinary man and a philosopher.
References
Bostock David, (1986) Plato’s Phaedo: Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Gallop David, (1999) Phaedo: Plato: Oxford World’s Classics.
Gerson P. Lloyd, (2004) Plato on Identity, Sameness and Difference, The Review of Metaphysics. Vol: 58. No: 2, pp. 305.
Gordon Jill, (1998) The Death of Socrates and the Life of Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo, The Review of Metaphysics. Vol: 52. No. 205, pp. 127.
Michelini A. Ann, (2003) Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy: Brill: Boston.
Morgan L. Michael, (1998) Form and Argument in Late Plato, The Review of Metaphysics. Vol: 52. No. 205, pp. 150.
Parry D. Richard, (2007) Russell, Daniel C. Plato on Pleasure and the Good Life, The Review of Metaphysics. Vol: 60. No: 3, pp. 688.
Phaedo, 2009. Web.
Stern Paul, (1993) Socratic Rationalism and Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato’s Phaedo: State University of New York Press: Albany, NY.
Vallega Alejandro, (2006) Beets, M. G. J. from Time to Eternity: A Companion to Plato’s Phaedo, The Review of Metaphysics. Vol. 59. No. 4, pp. 871.