Transcript L06-205-01-10

L06-205-01-10-17
The crises in Phaedo
Progress of the argument
• 1. The settling on Learning as Recollection as a point of doctrine
• Anamnesis: literally, unforgetting S73, p11
• Nothing difficult to understand, replied Socrates. For example, if 'falling asleep' existed, and 'waking up' did
not balance it by making something come out of sleep, you must realize that in the end everything would
make Endymion look foolish. He would be nowhere, because the whole world would be in the same
state—asleep. And if everything were [c] thing were combined and nothing separated, we should soon
have Anaxagoras 'all things together.' In just the same way, my dear Cebes, if everything that has some
share of life were to die, and if after death the dead remained in that form and did not come to life again,
would it not be quite inevitable that in the end everything should be dead and nothing alive? If living things
came from other living things, and the living things died, what possible means could prevent their
number from being [d] exhausted by death?
• None that I can see, Socrates, said Cebes. What you say seems to be perfectly true.
• Yes, Cebes, he said, if anything is true, I believe that this is, and we were not mistaken in our agreement
upon it. Coming to life again is a fact, and it is a fact that the living come from the dead, and a fact that the
souls [e] of the dead exist.
• Besides, Socrates, rejoined Cebes, there is that theory which you have often described to us—that what we
call learning is really just recollection. If that is true, then surely what we recollect now we must have
learned at some time before, which is impossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered
this human shape.
• So in that way too it seems likely that the soul is immortal.
Logic? Or oversight?
• The objections of Cebes & Simmias
• S77 p15
• Quite right, Simmias, said Cebes. It seems that we have got the proof of one half of what we wanted—that
the soul existed before birth—but now we need also to prove that it will exist after death no less than before
birth, if our proof is to be complete.
• As a matter of fact, my dear Simmias and Cebes, said Socrates, it is proved already, if you will combine this
last argument with the one about which we agreed before, that every living thing comes from the dead.
• SIMMIAS: Soul an atunement
• The fact is, Socrates, that on thinking it over, and discussing it with Cebes here, I feel that your theory has
serious flaws in it. [e] Your feeling is very likely right, my dear boy, said Socrates, but tell me where you
think the flaws are.
• What I mean is this, said Simmias. You might say the same thing about tuning the strings of a musical
instrument, that the attunement is something invisible and incorporeal and splendid and divine, and located
in the tuned instrument, while the instrument itself and its strings 86 are material and corporeal and
composite and earthly and closely related to what is mortal.
CEBES
• Grant everything: soul pre-exists, it is invisble, it resembles the divine, but
we still haven’t proved that it is immortal
• The tailor and the coat. S87
• Suppose that an elderly tailor has just died. Your theory would be just like
saying that the man is not dead, but still exists somewhere safe and sound,
and offering as proof the fact that the coat which he had made for himself
and was wearing has not perished but is still intact. If anyone was skeptical,
I suppose you would ask him which is likely to last longer, a [c] man or a
coat which is being regularly used and worn, and when he replied that the
former was far more likely, you would imagine that you had proved conclusively that the man is safe and sound, since the less-enduring object has
not perished
The need to explain everything that comes
to be: enter Anaxagoras 97 p.28
• These reflections made me suppose, to my delight, that in Anaxagoras
I had found an authority on causation who was after my own heart. I
assumed that he would begin by informing us whether the earth is
flat or round, and would then proceed to explain in detail the
reason and logical [e] necessity for this by stating how and why it was
better that it should be so.
• BUT: Anxagoras never used that principle. All physis, physical
Hypothetical inquiry: theory 99/100- p.29
• Well, after this, said Socrates, when I was worn out with my physical investigations, it
occurred to me that I must guard against the same sort of risk which people run when
they watch and study an eclipse of the sun; they really do sometimes injure their eyes,
unless they study its reflection in water or some other medium. I conceived of something
like this happening to myself, and I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes
and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses might blind my soul
altogether. [e] So I decided that I must have recourse to theories, and use them in trying
to discover the truth about things. Perhaps my illustration is not quite apt, because I
do not at all admit
• 100 that an inquiry by means of theory employs 'images' any more than one which
confines itself to facts. But however that may be, I started off in this way, and in every
case I first lay down the theory which I judge to be soundest, and then whatever seems
to agree with it—with regard either to causes or to anything else—I assume to be true,
and whatever does not I assume not to be true. But I should like to express my meaning
more clearly, because at present I don't think that you understand.
• No, indeed I don't, said Cebes, not a bit.
Further problems: Soul as EIDOS or Form
• It that is immortal, it is not YOUR soul.
• Then: If SOUL is a FORM, how can a full doctrine of Forms be
articulate.
• Enter Plato, Republic