For centuries scholars have
tried to see if we can disentangle Socrates from Plato. Like the search for the historical Jesus, the
attempts have been many and ingenious and often differ widely one from another. The arguments for immortality in the Phaedo
depend on a style of reasoning that Aristotle specifically says originated with
his master rather than Socrates. I think
we can safely say that here Plato is doing much more than just attempting to
report Socrates’s words and opinions. He
is reaching for some logical certainly about the immortality of the soul.
My dominant impression of the Phaedo is
how poorly Plato's arguments have weathered the centuries. That impression has made me sensitive to one
the dialogue’s themes – the limitations of reason.
1)
Fear
is expressed that the Socratic method, with its relentless demolishing of
position after position may create a lack of faith in reason itself –
"Don't let us be 'misologues', hating
argument....It would be a pitiable disease, when there is an argument true and
sound and such as can be understood, if through the pain of meeting so many
which seem sometimes to be true and sometimes not, instead of blaming himself
and his own clumsiness a man should...throw the blame from himself upon the
arguments and for the rest of his life continually hate and abuse them."
Phaedo
2)
There
is anxiety over the impact of the body's interference with the mind's search for
truth:
"With loves and desires and fears and
all kinds of fancies and much rubbish, it infects us....Indeed wars and
factions and battles all come from the body and its desires, and from nothing
else. For the desire of getting wealth causes
all wars, and we are compelled to desire wealth by the body, being slaves to
its culture; therefore we have no leisure for philosophy....if we do have some
leisure and turn away from the body to speculate on something, it causes
confusion and disturbance, and dazzles us so that it will not let us see the
truth."
Phaedo
3)
Socrates
himself is allowed to express doubt about whether he can reason without at
least one very dangerous bias –
“For in fact as regards this very matter I
am just now no philosopher, I am a philovictor - I want to win."
Phaedo
I’m
not saying that Plato has no faith in reason.
Certainly the following words from the Crito could almost serve as a
motto for the entire enlightenment project.
"For
my way is and always has been to obey no one and nothing, except the reasoning
which seems to me best when I draw my conclusions."
Crito
But
the dialogue still sounds note after note of worry about how well reason serves
as a tool in the search for truth.
Towards the end of the dialogue it is even compared (with some
wistfulness) to the possibility of divine revelation:
"I think a man's duty is one of two
things: either to be taught or to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot,
at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove,
and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life and take the risk;
unless he could have a more seaworthy vessel to carry him more safely and with
less danger, some divine doctrine to bring him through."
Phaedo
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