FREE ESSAY ON PLATO'S PHAEDO

PLATO'S PHAEDO

Plato's Phaedo is a dialog between Phaedo, Cebes, and Simmias depicting Socrates
explanation as to why death should not be feared by a true philosopher. For if a person
truly applies oneself in the right way to philosophy, as the pursuit of ultimate truth,
they are preparing themselves for the very act of dying. Plato, through Socrates, bases
his proof on the immortality of the soul, and it being the origin of our intellect.
Several steps must be taken for the soul to be proven immortal. First the body and all
the information acquired though it must be discredited. For without the question being
addressed of whether sensory information can be trusted, looking inwards towards the soul
and the intangible for the essence of truth would be absurd. Plato must prove through
Socrates that this is in fact so, For without this his legacy would be one of being
condemned to death for committing a grievous crime. Not as a philosopher being granted a
release from the body to achieve ultimate knowledge.
The pursuit of philosophy, to Socrates, involves the denial of the body's desires due to
their distraction to any intellectual engagement. For the acquirement of knowledge is an
intellectual pursuit, one that the body confuses with faulty sensory information, Plato
says through Socrates, "Now take the acquisition of wisdom; is the body a hindrance or
not, if one takes it into partnership to share an investigation? What I mean is this: is
there any certainty in human sight and hearing, or is it true, as the poets are always
dinning into our ears, that we neither hear or see anything accurately?" (1) 
What we perceive though the senses has to be quantified constantly by the intellect. For
example, a man seen in the distance is mistaken to be a woman, when the mistake is
realized we do not jump to the conclusion that a woman just mysteriously changed into a
man. Our intellect makes the correction that it was always a man, and it was actually a
visual error that made him seem female. Distance or any other means of creating ambiguity
leads us to differentiate between what we experience and what we know to be actually
happening. If a differentiation has to take place between the crude sensory information
and what we view as reality, than the truth or meaning within an object is not held
within the sensory perception of it. "Well, have you ever apprehended them with any other
bodily sense? By "them" I mean them all, including tallness or health or strength in
themselves, the real nature of any given thing - what it actually is. Is it through the
body that we get our truest view of them? Isn't it true that in any inquiry you are
likely to attain more nearly to knowledge of your object in proportion to the care and
accuracy with which you have prepared yourself to understand that object in itself?" (2)

Besides the processing of inaccurate information, the temptations and desires of the body
are so strong and numerous that the philosopher "never gets an opportunity to think." (3)

The functions of the body that are being described as distractions and contradictions are
in fact the fundamental processes of life. To view these as burdensome is to perceive the
functions of life, those of physical necessity as well as joy and contentment, as an
annoyance. A nagging that would be appreciated only if removed. Thus, putting the soul at
the center of the definition of what we are, that which is seeking wisdom, in short the
essence of humanity. Thus, if the body is only a distraction to thought, and intellectual
investigation is the only way to achieve wisdom and knowledge of an object in itself,
then the separation of the intellect from the burdens of the body is the only way to
achieve absolute clarity of thought. "Is death nothing more or less than this, the
separate condition of the body by itself when it is released from the soul, and the
separate condition of the soul by itself when released from the body? Is death anything
more than this?" (4) 
So death becomes the pinnacle of intellectual discovery and not the grievous end to all
that is precious in life. To view something in itself by itself, with out the
distractions of the body, is the only way to discover its truth. This is true for
external objects such as that of a table or chair, and also true for the body and that
which is considered intimately apart of our person, the itself of ourselves. That essence
is the soul not the body, the intangible verses the tangible.
If the body is merely a distraction to the soul and philosophical investigation, this
raises the question as to what happens to the soul after it leaves the body. Does it
cease to exist, and if so isn't it a paradox as to whether there is any philosophical
investigation possible at all. For if the soul where to perish the instant it left the
body, the moment that pure thought is able to take place, no such thought would be
possible. Plato answers this in several stages, for it is a complex issue. First of all,
ultimately for death to be an occurrence that should not be feared, the soul, the essence
of humanity, must be immortal. Allowing an eternity for the philosophical investigation
of an object in itself by itself. Where does life originate from is the first question
that must be answered, and it is answered in a discussion about opposites. The answer
being that it comes from death. "And similarly if it becomes smaller, it mist be bigger,
and become smaller afterwards?" (5) 
"What about this: if a thing becomes worse, is it not from being better, and if more
just, from being ore unjust?" (6) 
"Are we satisfied, then that all opposites are brought about in this way - from
opposites?" (7) 
Meaning that everything has an opposite, and it is that very opposite that brings it's
opposite into existence. Leading to the correlation that there are two processes of
generation being conducted between two pairs of opposites, "the first from the second,
and another the second from the first?" (8) 
If the opposite to big is small, heat to cool, and sleep to awake, then the opposite of
living is death. If pairs of opposites come from each other, and death is the opposite of
life, then the living come from the dead, and the dead from the living. Giving proof that
souls exist after death and remain long enough to be "reborn". As a further argument as
to the existence of the soul before birth the process of recollection is introduced. This
is the ability to recognize equality, beauty, or any other quality, in the limited
representations given to us by the senses. To be able to recognize the imperfect, as a
representation of a perfect attribute, an idea of the perfect must already exist. If an
idea of a perfect attribute must exist before it's imperfect representation can be
recognized through a sensory experience, we must have had an idea of perfection before we
started to explore the world sensually. We began to explore things sensually at birth so
if we were to have a preexisting knowledge of perfection it must have predated our own
birth. Birth is the origin of the body, and therefore to be incorporated in us prier our
bodies, its incorporation must have been an attribute of our souls. "So it must be as a
result of the senses that we obtained the notion that all sensible equals are striving to
realize actual equality but falling short of it. " (9) 
"So before we began to see and hear and otherwise perceive equals we must somewhere have
acquired the knowledge of equality as it really is; otherwise we could never have
realized, by using it as a standard for comparison, that all equal objects of sense are
desirous of being like it, but are only imperfect copies" (10) 
The last two arguments are raised to prove thoroughly that the soul exists after death,
and that if it exists after death that it is truly immortal. The first of these proposes
is that the soul has an attunement, like that of a musical instrument. The instrument
being the representation of the physical body and the invisible tuning being that of the
soul. The flaw with this argument is that it supposes the soul, like a tuning coming from
the strings of an instrument, is dependent upon the physical components of the body. If
the soul exists before the body then it can not be dependent upon it's physical
components to exist. An attunement of the soul also leads to the assumption that this
attunement can vary, being more or less in tune. Giving rise to the theory that the body
can effect the tuning of the soul, allowing the soul to be more or less in tune. Seeing
that the soul can never be more or less of a soul it can not have tuning. "Does that
which is neither more or less in tune contain a greater or smaller proportion of
attunement, or an equal one?" (11)
"Then since no soul is any more or less than just a soul, it is neither more or less in
tune." (12)
The second argument is that the soul may survive many lifetimes but eventually it will
wear out, for there are an inexhaustible amount of new bodies and lives, and only one
particular soul. For this argument to be answered the very essence of what the soul is
must be examined. Whenever the soul is present if brings life, and when the is absent so
is life. For if a thing is beautiful it said to take part in beauty itself. Or if a man
is tall he partakes in tallness. Further more if something is beautiful, and thus
partaking in beauty itself, it can not partake in ugliness. For beauty and ugliness are
opposites and one can not exist in the presence of the other in the same object. Though
the same object that was considered beautiful when compared to something else of
surpassing beauty it is considered to be partaking in ugliness. Some objects partake in
so much of an attribute that they can not, in any comparison, partake in their opposite.
That is an opposite itself can not become an opposite to itself. Fire can not remain in
the presence of cold with out ceasing to exist. Likewise the soul, which is life itself,
can not partake in its opposite, dying, or it shall cease to exist. For living and dying
are opposites. If a soul can not partake in dying it must be not only partaking in the
attribute of living, it must be life itself, therefore the very opposite of death. If an
opposite can not become an opposite to itself, and life and are death are opposites, then
the must be immortal. The cyclic nature of the soul, is an example of the cyclic nature
of the universe. To illustrate this Socrates gives his interpretation of how there are
many different layers to the earth and how they coexist in a cyclic pattern. For rivers
cycle into the ocean which cycles into a great cavern, called Tartarus, that dissects the
Earth allowing all water to circulate throughout the world. This cyclic pattern also
applies to the levels of beauty and divinity. For the gems and metals that we hold
precious are in fact just pebbles descended from a reality that exists above us. For we
live in hollows of the earth, that are filled with the dregs of the celestial ether that
fills the universe. This ether flows down filling them with air, mists, and water. Where
to the reality above us, what we call air to them is like our water, and the celestial
ether, in it's pure form is their air. Likewise if there where people living at the
bottom of the ocean they would in turn treat the water as air. This is all very
metaphoric, and colorful, but describes the different levels of understanding and
perspective associated with knowledge. 
If the soul is immortal then it is living itself. By means of recollection we attribute
the imperfect sensual images of objects to be representations of various perfect
attributes themselves. With the soul existing before the body, the soul can not have
attunement for it implies that the soul is dependent upon the body for its existence.
Therefore the truth to an object in itself and by itself can not be contained in the
physical representation given to us by the senses, therefore a philosopher should, in the
search of truth, disregard the sensual distractions of the body. Allowing the intellect
to be as free as possible for philosophical contemplation. With the abandonment of the
physical the philosopher is given greater ability to practice his or her search for
truth. Thus, the philosopher, being in pursuit of the truth is also in the pursuit of
death as means to gain absolute truth. For only through death is it possible for the soul
be completely free of the confines and distractions of the body, the state that is
necessary for pure contemplation. 
This cyclic nature of life and death, of understanding and confusion, is an outline of
what philosophy is, and how it leads to the acquirement of absolute knowledge. For even
though Socrates says that the physical is only a distraction to the pursuit of wisdom,
that very pursuit is dependent upon the understanding of the physical to be able to
establish what is truth. If any aspect of exploration is left uninvestigated the results
it achieves, being any truth or knowledge uncovered, become partial in nature. Socrates
alludes to this himself when he encourages Pheado by running his fingers through his
hair. "So he laid his hand on my head on my head and gathered up the hair on my neck."
(13)
Furthermore, Socrates suggests that they should all cut off their hair until the present
argument is solved satisfactually. For without physical representation we have no ability
to identify any aspect of perfection, for only through imperfect sensory information can
we appreciate the perfect. The physical reference, be it only metaphoric, is essential to
being able to convey any information. So even though the absolute truth of an object may
lie completely outside of the physical, the accessing of that information while confined
within a physical form is dependent upon physical representation. The philosopher is
supposed to be awaiting the release of the soul from the body, so as perfection and truth
can be appreciated in itself by itself. Without the monotonous struggle of the
philosophical process while within physical confines of the body, no soul would be
trained to appreciate the intellectual freedom granted to the released soul. "So long as
we keep to the body and our soul is contaminated with this imperfection, there is no
chance of ever attaining satisfactorily to our object, which we assert to be Truth."
(14)
The rationale that the separation of the soul and body as being the only avenue to attain
absolute truth, must have come from the analyzing of the physical information and then
evaluating it as being flawed and a distraction to the real pursuit of wisdom. Without
this evaluation no conclusions could be made as to the validity of the senses and all
that is contained in sensual information. This falls back to the cyclic nature of
philosophical investigation for with out the expenditure of filtering out the physical
the intellect would remain undefined and no investigation would be possible. Further more
we interact in a physical context, and are dependent upon sensory information for
communication. Without communication Socrates and Plato would not be able to conduct any
investigation. For investigation without communication will always collimate with
hypothesis, and never lead to any absolute fact. The very basis of Plato's works is
communication and that communication is in the form of dialogues, the very application of
physical verbal communication. To propagate the ideals of philosophical abandonment of
the body, the communication devices of the body must be incorporated to achieve any
appropriate decision. To observe the soul itself by itself may involve the concept; that
though we are intangible and immortal in essence, we can only be quantified physically.
For we have no way of quantifying the soul, besides being life itself, and those
qualities used to define life are quantified solely in a physical context, as that which
gives an object the qualities that make it distinct from death and those objects that are
inanimate such as; movement, reproduction, respiration, and growth. If an object contains
life, that life can not be quantified only without containing those physical qualities.
Bibliography
Bibliography
(1) Phaedo 65 b
(2) Phaedo 65 e
(3) Pheado 66 c
(4) Pheado 64 c
(5) Phaedo 71 a
(6) Phaedo 71 a
(7) Pheado 71 a
(8) Pheado 71 b
(9) Phaedo 75 b
(10) Phaedo 75 c
(11) Phaedo 93 d
(12) Pheado 93 e
(13) Phaedo 89 b
(14) Phaedo 66 b