The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth

The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth

RONNA BURGER -

Yale University Press New Haven and London

Copyright ~ 1984 by Yale Universit~ All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, ii1 or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 aJ of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by James J. Johnson and set in Trump Mediaeval Roman. Printed in the United States of America by BookCrafters, Chelsea, Michigan. Ubrary of Congress Cataloging in Pubbcation Data

Burger, Ronna, 194 7The Phaedo: a Platonic labyrinth. Bibliography: p. lncludes index. 1. Plato. Phaedo. 2. lmmortality {Philosophyt-/ History. l. Title. 8379.887 1984 184 84-40191 ISBN 0-300-03163-7

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the CoUncil on Library Resources.

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Das Sein-wir haben keine andere Vorstellung davon als LebenWie kann also etwas Totes 'sein'? !Nietzsche, from the Nachlass der Achtzigeriahre)

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION

Prologue (57a-59d) Logos and Mythos (59d-63e) CHAPTER THREE The Practice of Dying j63e-69ej CHAPTER FOUR Genesis (69e-72e) CHAPTER FIVE Anamnesis (72e-77d) CHAPTER SIX Likeness (77d-84b) CHAPTER SEVEN Images of the Psyche (84c-88b) CHAPTER EIGHT Misology (88c-9lc) CHAPTER NINE Harmony (9lc-95e) CHAPTER TEN The Techne of Logos (95e-102b) CHAPTER ELEVEN Immortality (102b-107b) CHAPTER TWELVE Mythos (107c-115a) CHAPTER THIRTEEN Pharmakon (ll5a-118a)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

ix 1 14 24 37 51 69

85 101 112 122 135 161 187 206 218 2 76 283

Acknowledgments

The opponunity to write the original draft of this book was provided by a fellowship in 1979-80 at Tiibingen University, for which I express appreciation to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and in panicular to Professor H. J. Kramer. Maureen MacGrogan of Yale University Press offered valuable suggestions and encouragement in seeing the manuscript through the early stages of preparation for publication; at later stages the manuscript benefited from the editorial comments of Jean van Altena. Many improvements in the final product are due to the thoughtful recommendations of Michael Davis. I am grateful to Robert Berman for innumerable discussions inspired by the Phaedo but ranging far beyond it. This project began with Seth Benardete, with whom I read and studied the Phaedo in 1978-79, and has been sustained since then by our correspondence and conversation. Having shared in this tum to the logos, I find it difficult to determine the limits of what this work owes him.

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Introduction

The doctrines of "Platonism," as typically understood throughout the Western philosophical tradition, do not always seem to be substantiated by, and often seem to conflict with the evidence of the Platonic dialogues. The various strategie~ pursued in the attempt to account for this discrepancy are distinguished by the different consequences they draw from a common recognition of the peculiar character of the dialogue as a literary form. 1 The admittedly elusive and perplexing character of the dialogue, however, has not often put into doubt the presumably clear and obvious character of the doctrines assumed to be Platonic. This lack of skepticism would indeed be inexplicable were there no evidence at all in the dialogues for these purported teachings: those dialogues, or passages therefrom, that most readily appear to provide such evidence have long enjoyed, for just that reason, a privileged status. This is illustrated, perhaps more explicitly than in any other case, by the reception, interpretation, and evaluation of Plato's Phaedo. Agreement on the status of the Phaedo as a locus classicus of the Platonic teaching has been shared by contemporary scholars no less than by ancient commentators, beginning with Aristotle. And despite centuries of debate about the success or failure of its execution, there has been little dispute about the intention of the dialogue: the Phaedo is meant to be an exposition and defense of "the twin pillars" of Platonic

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INTRODUCTION

philosophy, the theory of ideas and the immortality of the souP On the basis of this double theme, the Phaedo has been accorded the distinction-sometimes thought to be a dubious honor-of having inaugurated Western metaphysics, in its double form of Metaphysica generalis and Metaphysica specialis. 3 Even when these metaphysical themes are not taken to be the primary objective of the dialogue, they are not disclaimed but are only considered to be subordinate, for example, to the Socratic teaching concerning the supreme importance of man's "tendance of his soul."' That the Phaedo is Plato's "tribute of admiration to his beloved friend and master" may be hard to deny,' although there has been much controversy over the issue of the accuracy of its representation of the historical Socrates. 6 This controversy, however, concerns only the extent to which Socrates is portrayed as the originator of the doctrines assumed to be Platonic-namely, the theory of ideas, and the immortality of the soul. It is, more precisely, the mutual interdependence of these two doctrines that is thought to constitute the theme of the Phaedo. The immutable and eternal ideas, which exist apart from the sphere of ever changing phenomena, furnish the objects of pure reason when it operates unhampered by perception and bodily desire. To apprehend and thus realize its kinship with the ideas, the soul must be freed from reliance on the senses and attachment to the passions, released from its corporeal prison. Since death is nothing but this separation of the soul from the body, it is to be sought after and welcomed by the lover of wisdom: the result of the philosopher's success in "the practice of dying and being dead" is fulfillment of the desire for communion of the pure soul with the pure beings. Such "pure intellectualism divorced from life" would indeed seem to have as its aim "the eternal preservation of the soul in the cold storage of eternally frozen absolute Forms"' This account of the "Platonism" of the Phaedo is surely not conjured up out of thin air: it is more or less the understanding of the speeches of Socrates displayed by his interlocutors. But should one assume that Plato, in fabricating this image of Socratic conversation, intends to present to his

INTRODUCTION

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readers no more, and no less, than Socrates appears to address to his interlocutors? To make this assumption would be to ignore the very character of the dialogue as a dialogue, which more often than not displays the intellectual limitations of the characters it represents. If Socrates is indeed the Platonic spokesman, it is only to the extent that he speaks over the heads of his interlocutors, whose very partial understanding of his speeches affects the direction in which the conversation develops. Plato's address to his readers cannot be assumed to be identical, then, with Socrates' address to his interlocutors. Since Plato speaks nowhere in his own name, no particular position presented in the dialogue can be directly identified as the Platonic teaching' The distance between the Platonic dialogue as an imitation and the Socratic conversation it imitates is signified in the following way: everything contingent in spontaneous speech is transformed, by the written work, into a necessity. Certainly, if the dialogue is to have the appearance of a live conversation, it must represent the arbitrary and superfluous factors that characterize any particular encounter; but what appears accidental-if we forget we are reading-belongs in the representation only if it has some significance which is not arbitrary or superfluous. Whatever role chance plays in the object of imitation, teleology reigns supreme in the work as imitation. This issue is made thematic by the Platonic dialogue in which Socrates criticizes the dangers of the written word-and thus indicates, of course, the obstacles that Platonic writing seeks to overcome-' In that context, Socrates offers this criterion of a properly constructed written work: it must be organized like a living animal, with every joint and member designed to serve a particular purpose in the whole. It must be governed by "logographic necessity. " 10 To the extent that the Platomc d1alogue fulfills this criterion-and it is hard to imagine any written work that does so more adequately-no argument can be immediately isolated from its context; its significance, particularly if it is or appears to be unsound, can be grasped only by taking into account its function in the whole. The discovery of the definitive purpose

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INTRODUCTION

served in the dialogue by an unsound argument or an unde· fended position suggests its intentional status; but in that a, according to Darnascius (1.377), represents the noetic and separate harmony, and Socrates' 11 propitiation" is his detachment oi that true harmony from lts phantom. Cf. Phile-

bus 22c.

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NOTES TO PAGES 133-136

23. See Pindar Pythian 3.88-99; cf. Pausanius Descnption of Greece 9.12.3. 24. Cf. Friedrich Schleierrnacher, I'latons Werke, vol. 2.3, p. 12 and note 20, chapter 7. CHAPTER TEN

l. Contrast the defense by john Burnet !Plato's Phaedo, pp. xxxviii-xviii) of the autobiography as a portrait of the historical Socrates with 1 for example, R. D. Archer-Hind 1 s contention that "such inquiries must have always been alien to the strongly practical genius of Socrates" !The Phaedo of Plato, p. 86). See also R. Hackforth's discussion, in Plato's Phaedo, pp. 127-31. But m accordance with the theme of the dialogue-and perhaps of every Platonic dialogue-the importance of Plato's presentation of Socrates' autobiography lies in the fact that it is, as Paul Friedliinder puts it, "the way philosophy discovers itself" iPlaton, vol. 3, p. 56). Cf. note 24, introductwn. 2. Since the primary meaning of aitia is charge or accusation, based on the notion of human responsibility, it is hardly accidental that Socrates chooses his own condemnation and acceptance of it to illustrate what is 11 truly an aitia." Gregory Vlastos argues that, given the range covered by Socrates' use of the term, the proper translation of aitia would be "reason'' [see 11 Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo," Philosophical Review (1969):291-325). If Socrates is concerned with an aitia useful for "conceptual clarification," and 11 causeJI refers only to a temporal antecedent that is the sufficient condition for a subse· quent event, the latter is indeed a misleading word for the former. It is precisely by using the word aitia, however, that Socrates draws attention to the limitations, as well as the virtues, of his reconstruction of its meaning: the eide cannot replace mechanistic or teleological causality, but they are the "causes" of the determinacy of the pragmata, hence of their intelligibility. 3. Whereas Socrates tossed himself an6 kat6 investigating these questions, that is precisely how the disputatious describe the tide in the Euripus, as an image for the instability of logos and all the beings I90c ). 4. On the hot and the cold, see Archelaos DK 60A17 and Empedocles DK 31B68, on the blood, see Empedocles DK 31B105, on air, see Anaximenes DK 13B2 and Diogenes of Apollonia DK 64B4, 5; on fire, see Heraclitus DK 22B64; on the brain, see Alcmaeon DK 24AS.

NOTES TO PAGES 136-142

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5. Michael Davis sees the quesuons about life and thinking as amounting to the Socratic question, "\~\'hat is man?" (11 Socrates' PreSocratism: Some Remarks on the Structure of Plato's Phaedo/' Revww of Metaphysics (1980):560). 6. See 81d, 93b; cf. note 37, chapter 2 and note 21, chapter 13. 7. Cf. Parmenides 143c-d; H1ppias Major 302a-b. 8. Cf. Hippias Mator 300a-303d. 9. See Theaetetus 155d; Aristotle Metaphysics 982b12-19; cf. 60b, 62a. 10. Cf. Parmemdes 142d-e; Sophist l37d; Aristotle Metaphysics 1054a13-19. 11. Cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 984a18-21, b8-1l. 12. Aeschylus Prometheus Bound 450. This allusion would be especially appropriate if, as Seth Benardete shows, Prometheus' gift of the arts would have been useless had he not coupled it with "blind hopes" to replace the pre-Promethean situation of man, characterized by the constant awareness of death ("On Greek Tragedy," pp. 116-22). 13. Socrates separates his report of Anaxagoras' claim that mind 1s the cause of all (see DK 59Bl1, 13) from h1s own interpretation ofit in terms of the good (ci. Aristotle Metaphysics 984bl4-18, 985al8-21). 14. Cf. Ion 531d-532b; Republic 333e-334a. Socrates stresses that the eptsteme of what is best and what is worse is the same: if the good were known by nature rather than by "science,'' it might not entail knowledge of what is worse (cf. Republic 409a-el. 15. Plato's Timaeus delivers the same critique, reproaching those who mistake co-causes for the cause operating as far as possible in accordance with the idea of the best \Timaeus 46c-d). But he must make a new beginnmg m turning from the causality of mind to that of necessity as the "wandering cause,'' for mind could persuade necessity to bring only "the greater part" of the cosmos to perfection (47e48a). 16. Consider Socrates' image for the problem of the good of his best city in speech: although it may be best for the eyes of a statue to be painted a brilhant purple, 1t may not be good for the whole statue, of which those eyes are only a part (Republic 420c-d). 17. Cf. Republlc 505a-b; Lysis 219c-220b; cf. also Aristotle Metaphysics 994b9-16. 18. Aristotle considers Anaxagoras' nous a "deus ex machina 11 (Metaphysics 98Sa18-221. 19. Socrates recalls not only the acnon accompanying his open-

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NOTES TO PAGES 143-145

ing remarks on pleasure and pain (60b), but also the conclusion of the third argument, with its detailed description of the preservation of the corpse and its characterization of the bones and sinews as 11 So to speak, deathless" (BOd). 20. See Apology 30d. 21. For by rejecting an earlier flight from the Athenian prison, Socrates can flee from the approach of the metaphoric "opposite" to his own essential determination, namely the command of the demos to cease the practice of philosophy: he thus exemplifies in his own conduct the battle of opposites he is about to analyze (cf. 104b-c). 22. Cf. Timaeus 46d-e; Aristotle Physics 199b34-200a5. 23. The vortex theory that Socrates describes is ascribed by Aris· totle to Empedocles (De caelo 295a17-18), and the theory of the flat earth supported by a foundation of air to Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Democritus (De caelo 294b14-15). 24. Socrates begins his concluding myth, however, w1th a hypothesis about the position of the earth that leads to consequences that seem to satisfy the principle of sufficient reason, without depending on knowledge of the good (see 108e-109a and note 15, chapter 12). 25. Cf. Cratylus 418e-419b. 26. Socrates' image implies either the necessity of taking to the oars when the wind has failed (see Menander hag. 2411 or, as the scholiast on this passage suggests, making a second, safer journey. The Socratic second sailing not only proves to be safer, but can also be understood as a laborious human effort that must be undertaken in the absence of a more direct route. Its apparent inferiority, in any case, must be put into question in light of the danger or unreliability of the first way. Compare the uses of the image in Statesman 300c; Philebus 19c; cf. Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics 1109a34-35; Politics 1284bl9. 2 7. On Socrates' second sailing as a means of overcoming misology, see K. M. W. Shipton, "A good second-best: Phaedo 99bff.," Phronesis 11979):33-54. But the second way pursued by Socrates can· not be distinguished from the first as probability is to the ideal of certain knowledge, as Shipton argues, for Socrates' hypothesis of the causality of the ideas is intended to provide absolute certainty, at the price, of course, of abandoning probable knowledge of coming to be. His techne of logos would thus seem necessarily to alter the goal that he claimed to have sought in Anaxagorean teleology, rather than to be distinguished merely as a different means (see Shipton, p. 40; Kenneth Dorter, Plato ·s Phaedo, p. 120).

NOTES TO PAGES 145-147

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28. Socrates' specification of the sun being eclipsed cannot, therefore, be a "mere illustration 11 (Burnet, p. 108] or "mentioned merely as the occasion when people are most inclined to look at it" !David Gallop, Plato Phaedo, p. 17?1. 29. Consider Socrates' use of the verb pragmateuomai, ~'to be concerned wtth" )99d, IOOb, cf. diapragmateuomai, 95e), or the noun pragmateia, "a mauer of concern," or ''occupation'' [64e, 67b), or the expression pragmata parechem tini, "to cause someone trouble" (115a\. Cf. Socrates' account of the first name-given. who, becoming dizzy in their search for the beings.' did not 11 accuse" their own pathos, but believed that aut a ta pragmata are by nature turnwg and always in motion iCratylus 41 !b-e). 30. On the allusion to the divided line and the cave, see Rene Schaerer, "La Composition du Phedon," Revue des Etudes Grecques 119401:38-40. For a discussion of dianoenc eikasia, through which an image fulfills its function as an image by pointing beyond itself, see Jacob Klein, A Commentary on Plato's Meno, pp. 112~25 ton the divided line and cave in particular, p. 125).

31. On erga as the result of human action, in contrast with "mere speeches," see particularly Apology 32a-e. After reminding Glaucon that their purpose in constructing a model of the best city was not to demonstrate the possibility of bringing it into being, Socrates asks whether it 1s possible for anything to be realized in deed as it is in speech, or rather whether action is by nature less able to attain to truth that speech IRepubhc 473ai. But contrast Xenophon Memorabilia 4.4.10. 32. Cf. Republic 507d-509b 33. For a d1scuss1on of the difficulties involved in the meaning of sumphOnein, see Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dlalectic, pp. 126-29. If it means "to be consistent with," that would seem to be an inadequate ground for positing as true whatever is consistent with the initial hypothesis, but if it means ~