These minutes were spoken on
21 November;
for another version, go to the unspoken
minutes
Professor
Hutchinson began the lecture by telling the class about his own experience
reading Plato’s dialogue, Phaedo, for the first time. He said that it was the first of
Plato’s dialogues that really grabbed him. The professor said that the Phaedo told a story on a
number of levels and that it was a synthesis of many different things. First, it was the story of the last day
of an important person’s life, second, it was a truly powerful work of
art, and third, it was Plato’s loving portrait of Socrates.
Professor
Hutchinson then outlined the major themes he was going to address in the Phaedo. The first theme was pleasure and why
the shameless pursuit of it was bad and Plato’s idea of what a better
attitude toward it would be. The
second theme was knowledge, skepticism, and confidence. The professor also said that he wanted
to relate the Phaedo to elements of pre-Socratic philosophy. For example, Socrates’ myth about
the judgment of the dead and the Pythagorean themes, which are rich throughout
the dialogue. Professor Hutchinson
expanded on the Pythagorean themes by saying that Plato tried to create a
better theory of the soul, one that relied on the Forms as opposed to the
Pythagoreans who that relied on the concept of number. Plato was like an arch-Pythagorean in
that he took a great deal from the Pythagorean philosophy and attempted to
refine it. Professor Hutchinson
mentioned that the Pythagorean material in Phaedo was a reflection of
Plato’s own commitments and not Socrates’ personal beliefs. In Book Four of Xenophon’s Memorabilia,
Socrates expressed his disinterest in mathematics, which was a focal point for
the Pythagoreans. Despite such
evidence, there were some scholars who felt that the Phaedo was proof
that Socrates was a Pythagorean.
The professor said that these people were similar to those who were so
taken by Plato’s Apology that they believed it was an actual
account of Socrates’ trial.
In the dialogue Phaedo, Phaedo recounted the events of Socrates’ last day to his friend Echecrates. Professor Hutchinson mentioned how Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, was quickly taken home after she began to cry about her husband’s impending death. Plato treated her lack of self-control with contempt. The professor then read the passage at 60b.
Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed he said: “What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head. I think that if Aesop had noted this he would have composed a fable that a god wished to reconcile their opposition but could not do so, so he joined their two heads together, and therefore when a man has the one, the other follows later. This seems to be happening to me. My bonds caused pain in my leg, and now pleasure seems to be following. (60b-c)[1]
This passage talked about how pain and pleasure were
like two sides of the same coin and that a person could not experience one
without experiencing the other as well.
This should remind the class, Professor Hutchinson noted, of pleasure as
it was discussed by Protagoras.
The
theme of confidence was first brought up at 63e at the beginning of a passage
called the Second Apology. In this
passage, Socrates defended himself against his friends who had criticized him
for losing his argument in court.
Socrates also tried to explain his seeming confidence in the face of
death. He said that a “man
who has truly spent his life in philosophy is probably right to be of good
cheer in the face of death and to be very hopeful that after death he will
attain the greatest blessings yonder.” (63e)
The
theme of pleasure was reintroduced at 64c. Here Socrates approached the subject of what true pleasure
should be.
Is it anything else than the separation of the soul from the body? Do we believe that death is this, namely, that the body comes to be separated by itself from the soul, and the soul comes to be separated by itself apart from the body? Is death anything else than that?
No, that is what it is, he said.
Consider then, my good sir, whether you share my opinion, for this will lead us to a better knowledge of what we are investigating. Do you think it is the part of a philosopher to be concerned with such so-called pleasures as those of food and drink?
By no means.
What about the pleasures of sex?
Not at all.
What of the other pleasures concerned with the service of the body? Do you think such a man prizes them greatly, the acquisition of distinguished clothes and shoes and the other bodily ornaments? Do you think he values these or despises them, except in so far as one cannot do without them?
I think the true philosopher despises them.
Do you not think, he said, that in general such a man’s concern is not with the body but that, as far as he can, he turns away from the body towards the soul?
I do. (64c-e)
It was clear that Plato felt that pleasure should not
be hedonistic; rather it should concentrate on pleasing the mind. Plato believed that looking for
pleasure below the eyes was a mistake and that one should seek to pleasure what
was above the eyes, namely the mind.
The distinction of upper and lower pleasures could be related back to
the Pythagorean philosophy. Again
Socrates expressed his confidence in the face of death at 68b by saying that a
true lover of wisdom should not fear death knowing that he would only be able
to find wisdom in Hades.
Professor
Hutchinson then read a passage from 83d.
This quote discussed Plato’s belief that the exercise of pain and
pleasure welded the soul more solidly with the flesh.
Because every pleasure and every pain provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the soul to the body and to weld them together. It makes the soul corporeal, so that it believes that truth is what the body says it is. As it shares the beliefs and delights of the body, I think it inevitably comes to share its ways and manner of life and is unable ever to reach Hades in a pure state; it is always full of body when it departs, so that it soon falls back into another body and grows with it as if it had been sewn into it. Because of this, it can have no part in the company of the divine, the pure and uniform. (83d-e)
Therefore, as the soul shared in the beliefs and
experiences of the body, it could not hope to reach Hades in a pure state. This belief was shared by the
Pythagoreans and is why they stressed self-control. A student in the class then posed the question that, if a
soul was in a polluted body, then how could there ever be a sense of change or
improvement? Professor Hutchinson
did not think that was necessarily true.
He said Plato believed that everyone was capable of self-improvement and
that people tried to improve so they could earn a reward in heaven. The professor then mentioned that Plato
felt people had a tendency toward the bad. This was evidenced by Plato’s belief that failed
humans would be reincarnated in the bodies of lesser creatures. And since lesser creatures outnumbered
humans, that meant that throughout history, there had been a lot of bad
people. Plato’s thoughts on
the subject were rooted in the Pythagorean tenet of perpetual
reincarnation. Plato also had a
definite hierarchy of living things, with shellfish at the bottom of the
list. Later, Aristotle injected
more science and less fantasy into this theory.
The
climax of Socrates’ myth comes at 114d. In this passage, Socrates said that his story was nothing
you could insist on, but that sometimes it was noble to risk believing in
something you did not have actual evidence for.
No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief – for the risk is a noble one – that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale. That is the reason why a man should be of good cheer about his own soul, if during life he has ignored the pleasures of the body and its ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him more harm than good, but has seriously concerned himself with the pleasures of learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth, and in that state awaits his journey to the underworld. (114d-115a)
Such a risk could also help one prove a
hypothesis. By testing a certain situation,
one could, in the course of the experiment, prove the hypothesis. Socrates told those around him that he
did not want them to become mythologues.
Professor Hutchinson mentioned that mythologue was not a real word and
that Socrates was trying to tell his followers not to mistrust an argument even
if it had let them down on several occasions. Socrates said that a man should feel good about his soul if
he had adorned it with moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth
throughout his life.
Professor Hutchinson noted
that Socrates felt his real children were the Socratics and not necessarily
those who he biologically fathered.
The professor then read from
116e where Crito tried to persuade Socrates to prolong his life for at least a
few more moments.
But Socrates, said Crito, I think the sun still shines upon the hills and has not yet set. I know that others drink the poison quite a long time after they have received the order, eating and drinking quite a bit, and some of them enjoy intimacy with their loved ones. Do not hurry; there is still some time.
It is natural, Crito, for them to do so, said Socrates, for they think they derive some benefit from doing this, but it is not fitting for me. I do not expect any benefit from drinking the poison a little later, except to become ridiculous in my own eyes for clinging to life, and be sparing of it when there is none left. So do as I ask and do not refuse me. (116e-117a)
Crito mentioned that men previously in Socrates’
position would wait some time before drinking the poison, taking time to enjoy
a few last drinks and some intimacy with those close to them. Socrates, however, had no desire to
prolong his life any longer and said that if he partook in the activities of
his predecessors, he would end up feeling ridiculous in his own eyes. Here, Socrates was again demonstrating
his self-control by ignoring his bodily desire to live and instead choosing to
please his mind by dying with dignity.
At
95e, there was a famous Socratic flashback. There was a discussion of theories on generation and
destruction. Socrates mentioned
that when he was younger he was interested in natural science and looked to Anaxagoras
for an explanation. He was excited
to read that Anaxagoras believe that Mind controlled the universe, but was then
disappointed to discover how mechanistic the theory really was. Professor Hutchinson told the class
that the theory of the Forms was first introduced in Plato’s dialogue, Meno,
and that the Phaedo was a reference back to it. The main concept of the theory of Forms
was that things on earth acquire their characteristics from higher forms. For example, things that are beautiful
are beautiful because they share certain qualities with what Socrates called
‘the Beautiful’. Plato
felt that his theory of the Forms would function as the fundamental explanation
of post-Socratic philosophy.
The
professor then mentioned how Plato signed on with the philosophies of
Parmenides, the Pythagoreans and that he made reference to all the important
pre-Socratic philosophers except Democritus. Plato’s image of where humans resided in the world was
that humans lived in the hollows, buried in the muck, and in a deeper and more
watery place than most would like to think. According to Plato, humans were not as high up on the
evolutionary chain as they thought they were. Finally, the professor noted that Plato most likely looked
at humans in this lower state, so that there was still some room left to reach
for something higher and brighter.
[1]Plato, Phaedo, in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997). Subsequent parenthetical references will refer to this edition.