Summary of Plato's "Phaedo" With Discussion Questions and Commentary

Stephen Alexander Beach 

ἕτερον οἰχόμενον γενναῖον καὶ καθαρὸν καὶ ἀιδῆ, εἰς Ἅιδου ὡς ἀληθῶς, παρὰ τὸν ἀγαθὸν καὶ φρόνιμον θεόν, οἷς ἂν θεός θέλῃ, αὐτίκα καὶ τῇ ἐμῇ ψυχῇ ἰτέον, αὕτη δὲ δὴ ἡμῖν ἡ τοιαύτη καὶ οὕτω πεφυκυῖα ἀπαλ- λαττομένη τοῦ σώματος | εὐθὺς διαπεφύσηται καὶ ἀπόλωλεν, ὥς φασιν οἱ πολλοὶ ἄνθρωποι; πολλοῦ γε δεῖ, ὦ φίλε Κέβης τε καὶ Σιμμία, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὧδ ̓ ἔχει· 

ἐὰν μὲν καθαρὰ ἀπαλλάττηται, μηδὲν τοῦ σώματος συνεφέλκουσα, ἅτε οὐδὲν κοινωνοῦσα αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ βίῳ ἑκοῦσα εἶναι, | ἀλλὰ φεύγουσα αὐτὸ καὶ συνηθροισμένη αὐτὴ εἰς ἑαυτήν, ἅτε μελετῶσα ἀεὶ τοῦτο τὸ δὲ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ ὀρθῶς φιλοσοφοῦσα καὶ τῷ ὄντι τεθνάναι μελετῶσα ῥᾳδίως· ἢ οὐ τοῦτ ̓ ἂν εἴη μελέτη θανάτου;

ἐὰν μὲν – “if indeed” καθαρὰ ἀπαλλάττηται – “it departs pure,”μηδὲν τοῦ σώματος συνεφέλκουσα – “dragging along nothing of the body,” ἅτε οὐδὲν κοινωνοῦσα αὐτῷ – “since it has not shared anything with it” ἐν τῷ βίῳ – “in life” ἑκοῦσα εἶναι – “willingly to be,” ἀλλὰ φεύγουσα αὐτὸ – “but fleeing from it” καὶ συνηθροισμένη αὐτὴ εἰς ἑαυτήν – “and gathered itself into itself,” ἅτε μελετῶσα ἀεὶ – “since it is always practicing” τοῦτο – “this” τὸ δὲ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν – “and this is nothing other” ἢ ὀρθῶς φιλοσοφοῦσα – “than philosophizing correctly” καὶ τῷ ὄντι τεθνάναι – “and truly practicing dying” μελετῶσα ῥᾳδίως· – “practicing it easily.” ἢ οὐ τοῦτ ̓ ἂν εἴη – “Or would this not be” μελέτη θανάτου; – “the practice of death?”

This passage is from Plato’s Phaedo (probably), where Socrates discusses the soul’s separation from the body and how philosophy is a preparation for death.

Setting of the Dialogue

The Phaedo begins by Phaedo recounting to Echecrates what he witnessed with the death of Socrates. Echecrates begins by asking him why Socrates’ death was delayed so long after his sentencing at his trial. Phaedo says that the day before the trial the ship of Apollo was crowned, a ritual which commemorates Theseus each year whereby the ship makes a trip to Delos and back. This is a sacred time in which there can be no executions, and so Socrates’ death was awaiting the return of the ship. 

Echecrates wants to know everything, and so Phaedo begins to tell the story in more detail. He begins by saying that he did not pity Socrates, though it was his death, because Socrates carried himself so nobly. “I thought that in going to the other world he could not be without a divine call, and that he would be happy, if any man ever was, when he arrived there, and therefore I did not pity him as might seem natural at such a time.” Then Phaedo recounts the people that were there with him. 

When Phaedo entered the cell they find Socrates' wife, Xanthippe, and his child there, with Socrates just having been released from his chains. Xanthippe is crying and Socrates has her taken out. Socrates rubs his leg to ease the pain from having the chains on and offers a brief insight into the nature of pleasure and pain. 

The Dual Nature of Pleasure and Pain

Socrates talks about them as two heads of the same stem, and how a man cannot pursue one without encountering the other. "'How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem; and I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had noticed them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows, as I find in my own case pleasure comes following after the pain in my leg, which was caused by the chain.'" 

[This is quite an interesting insight, given that the pursuit of pleasure always leads to unending pursuit because of unfulfillment, a tolerance to the pleasure itself, and a slavery type addiction ... a sort of self-annihilation in its pursuit, a horrible pain to suffer. ... While the pursuit of of painful ends, such as self-growth, virtue, self-denial, and the like will be followed by a pleasure, not only of soul, but even a greater pleasure of the body. One enjoys food more when they are really hungry, not glutted; one enjoys rest more after they have worked hard, not hardly worked, etc. See my post on Xenophon's story of Hercules.]

This scene is a microcosm for the whole message of the dialogue. 

Socrates Composing Poetry?

From this Socrates is questioned as to why he has begun to write poetry and song at this point in his life, given that he has never done so before (and certainly has not thought highly of the like, given how they can manipulate the emotions to overpowering reason.) Socrates reports that he has had dreams throughout his life telling him to make music. He thought that what was meant by this was to cultivate art in the same manner that would support his philosophy, not in the popular sense, but now, just to be safe, he is not sure and so has created music and poetry in the popular sense. "But I was not certain of this, as the dream might have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under the sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that I should be safer if I satisfied the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, composed a few verses before I departed." 

[What is the meaning of this? One way to interpret this is that in the face of the irrational mystery of death, the intellect and reason butt up against their limits, and so to grapple with the reality of something like death a new mode is needed. Poetry and song can be a mode of exploring that which is irrational like them, and take the mystic through the intellectual darkness to find some type of understanding.] 

The Philosopher Practices for Death

I have talked briefly about this section previously on the blog here.

[My Body is a Cage by Arcade Fire. Here are some discussion questions for this section. How should human beings view death? What does it mean that the true philosopher (according to Socrates) practices for death? Why would someone want to live a "death to the world" where they deny their bodily desires and simulate what will happen in death? How is the question of death connected to the fundamental philosophical question, "What is most real?"]

The philosopher is a type of man who is ready to die at any time, though he will never kill himself. This is because we belong to the gods and they are the guardians of us and death. And so just as if an animal who belonged to a farmer killed itself and the farmer would be upset, so too with us and the gods. "Then there may be a reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me." 

But an objection is brought forward, if the gods are our good guardians then the philosopher should not want to leave their care in death. In fact it would be the fool that would want this, the wise man would want to stay under the service and care of the gods. Socrates responds that for the good man he will find even better gods and men in the afterlife than here on earth, so it is not foolish. And so the philosopher is actually always preparing through his life for this better state. Why then should the philosopher run away from the very thing which best fulfills what he has been seeking? "... the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is every pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at the arrival of that which he has been always pursuing and desiring?" What is death exactly? Well it is the separation of the body and the soul, when the soul is allowed to go free from the body. 

This leads to a discussion on the pleasures of the body and if the philosopher should care for these things. The philosophy shuns these things (eating, drinking, money, clothes, love, etc) so that he can focus more fully on the soul and not be distracted by the lower things of the body. And yet for the average person, a life without these pleasures is equivalent to not living at all, death. "...the rest of the world are of the opinion that a life which has no bodily pleasures and no part in them is not worth having; but that he who thinks nothing of bodily pleasures is almost as though he were dead." 

Likewise, the bodily senses are not very accurate and the one who seeks truth in them will end up being wrong. Rather, truth resides in the mind, and the mind which has no worry for the body can fully recollect itself with distraction. It is the mind which can know the highest truths of reality, things that the eyes cannot see nor the ears hear. "...did you ever reach them with any other bodily sense? (and I speak not of these alone, but of absolute greatness, and health, and strength, and of the essence or true nature of everything. Has the reality of them [absolute beauty and good too] ever been perceived by you through the bodily organs? or rather, is not the nearest approach to the knowledge of their several natures made by him who so orders his intellectual vision as to have the most exact conception of the essence of that which he considers?" The philosopher realizes that it is truth which is ultimately desirable, and it is the mind alone which can the intellectual vision of existence itself. 

Beware of the Soft Totalitarianism that Makes Us Repine From Death 

[Rat video by Steve Cutts]

Here Socrates describes a scene where all of the desires of the body are manipulated so that the soul cannot recollect itself, nor can the person do philosophy. [This reminds me of a certain soft totalitarianism that America and the West suffers from today. We are ostensibly "free" in that we can determine our own actions, but at the same time the whole economic system is geared towards profiting off of our most base desires. If they can make us addicted to junk food, alcohol, video games, pornography, Netflix, tobacco, gambling, social media, and so then they have taken away our freedom without us even knowing it. It becomes a situation of total control because the body is addicted to what they have to offer.] 

"For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fighting, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and int he service of the body; and in consequence of all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth: and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves: then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, now while we live, but after death, as the argument shows; for if while in company with the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow -- either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking." 

And so Socrates concludes this part of the dialogue saying that it is the philosopher who specializes in studying for these last moments as it is only then that the soul can be free of the body. And so it's ridiculous to be afraid of death if one has lived this good life of philosophy. It would be a contradiction. "...there would be ridiculous contradiction in men studying to live as nearly as they can in a state of death, and yet repining when death comes." He compares philosophy to a lover who one would happily go to the underworld for, as the myths recount. And so it should be with joy that the philosophy departs his enemy, the body, and goes to his beloved. 

Socrates points out that if earthly men are temperate or courageous it is only because they do it out of fear of missing out on some other earthly good. It is only the philosopher who does it because they are embracing death and its reconciliation there. "Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another dear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue." Rather, it is only in exchange for wisdom that one should make any of these sacrifices. "But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only..."

Argument One for the Soul - From Necessary Opposites 

I have talked about this argument previously on the blog here. 

[Is death natural? It is the most natural of things because we practice for it every day in sleeping and waking. The night and day are the stage, and the seasons are our example. At the end of the day when the body is weary and the sun goes down we get into our beds and lie still, closing our eyes and letting our consciousness leave us. Is not the evening like the end of our weary life? Are not our beds like coffins in which we lay down? Is not the darkness of our bedroom that of a tomb, and the closing of our eyes and drifting off that of death?] 

[It seems that there is a jump between talking about qualities of things, which do not exist in themselves, but always in others, to talking about substances with regard to souls, and so I don't know if the argument follows.]

After Socrates spends a large part of the beginning of the dialogue speaking about his view of death as a philosopher, and how he practices for death, he is then challenged by Cebes and Simmias to give some proofs that people should believe that the soul will survive the death of the body. Death certainly scares a lot of men, and will require some convincing for many people. "But in what relates to the soul, men are apt to be incredulous; they fear that when she leaves the body her place may be nowhere, and that on the very day of death she may be destroyed and perish - immediately on her release from the body, issuing forth like smoke or air and vanishing away into nothingness. For if she could only hold together and be herself after she was released from the evils of the body, there would be good reason to hope, Socrates, that what you say is true." 

Socrates begins his first argument by referencing an old belief that souls never die but rather the body dies and the souls go to the place of the dead from where they are reborn again back into this world. He says that since we cannot see that process directly we need to explore this view with other proofs to back it up. This sends him into talking about necessary opposites in nature. 

He beings by referring to all things that are subject to generation. Then, within this group, he points to those things (whether natural occurrences or living things) that have opposites of themselves. He asks, "Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?" In other words, "...anything which becomes greater must become greater after being less." He begins with two examples: good and evil and just and unjust. It is by the very makeup of the cosmos that when something like this diminishes, it must become less from a place of being greater. He gives more examples, weak and strong and swift and slow, and worse and better. In other words, all opposites come from their opposites. 

And so then he universalizes these examples and points out that there is a continuum of these things in which you have the opposites and then between them a process of change of increase and decrease. "And in this universal opposition of all things, are there not also two intermediate processes which are ever going on, from one to the other, and back again; where there is a greater and a less there is also an intermediate process of increase and diminution, and that which grows is said to wax, and that which decays to wane?" 

Socrates is making the claim that this is true of all opposites, and lists more examples as well: division-composition, cooling-heating, sleeping-waking. This all leads to the question at hand, is there an opposite of life? It it death, of course. And so it must follow that life and death are two opposites between which there is a constant waxing and waning like the other examples given. 

Socrates then uses the waking-sleeping example to go into more detail. Waking and sleeping are opposites from one another, and so from sleep waking must come forth and from waking sleep must come forth in the intermediate processes. "Then suppose that you analyze life and death to me in the same manner. Is not death opposed to life? Yes. And they are generated one from the other? Yes. What is generated from life? Death. And what from death? I can only say in answer -- life." And so Socrates continues pressing him that if the living come from the dead then men's souls which come to life must be alive already in the realm of the dead. And that while one of the acts is visible to us, namely dying, that it must follow that the other must exist likewise. "And may not the other be inferred as the complement of nature, who is not to be supposed to go on one leg only? And if not, a corresponding process of generation in death must also be assigned to her?" This corresponding process to death is "revival. And so life and death are opposites with the intermediary being the process of dying and revival; revival being the souls being brought back from the place of the dead to this world. 

[The phrase he uses about nature, comparing her to walking on two legs shows that he means that just as a person balances themselves with two legs, so too nature balances herself in all of these opposites. Likewise, implied in the argument is that since nature is intelligible to us, meaning philosophy is possible because there are patterns we can understand, it doesn't make sense to say that natures follows a pattern in all examples except this one, just because we can't see half of the process. This draws directly on the Pre-Socrates discovery of the intelligibility of the Cosmos.] 

In conclusion, "Then there is a way in which we arrive at the inference that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and if this is true, then the souls of the dead must be in some place out of which they come again. And this, as I think, has been satisfactorily proved." 

Socrates, though, points out one more implication about nature which backs up his argument. If there were no intermediate process which draws the opposites back from one another in a cyclical way, then all opposites would be destroyed over time as there would be no return from the process into one of the opposites. [And given the Greeks thought of the cosmos as unending temporally, this process would already be completed as of now, and clearly it is not.] "...if all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive - how could this be otherwise? For if the living spring from any others who are not the dead, and they die, must not all things at last be swallowed up in death?"

Argument for the Soul #2 - From Knowledge as Recollection

I have talked about this argument on this blog previously here. 

[Interesting discussion questions for this section. Where does knowledge come from when we think? Where do our thoughts arise from in our minds?]

From here, Cebes makes a connection to the conclusion that souls preexist their birth and brings up Socrates' doctrine of knowledge as recollection. If it is the case that learning is only really remembering what we know already, then we must have preexisted our bodies, backing up the previous argument. Cebes begins by bolstering the argument by pointing out that when questions are framed in the right way that people cannot help but give the right answer. But how could they do this unless there was "right reason" already in them, he says. 

Socrates then pipes in and begins to lead Simmias from the beginning of the argument. He first clarifies that "recollection," they can agree, is remembering something known as a previous time. Socrates then stretches the idea of recollection by bringing in the idea of associative memory. He gives the example that, say, when someone sees a lyre it may very well bring back memory of their beloved with whom those emotions connect. "And this sort of thing, he said, is recollection, and is most commonly a process of recovering that which has been forgotten through time and inattention." 

And so whether things are like or unlike other things they can serve as a type of trigger for recollection of another to the mind. But when triggering and recollecting of two like things, this also brings with it a question of clarity. Is the thing recollected corrupted or accurate? To illustrate this Socrates brings up the abstract idea of "equality" as such, over and above any particular instances of equality we know of. Equality is indeed something which everyone would claim to know and recognize. But where did this perfect notion come from, given that when we see examples of equality, so to speak, in material things, there is never perfect equality? 

Rather, whenever we compare two things we must recall the first in order to compare it to the second to see if they are equal. In material things this is never the case, though. And so, how is it that in a world which perfect quality does not exist we all know the abstract notion of perfect equality? It couldn't have come from all the imperfect comparisons of wood or stone or whatever else, but rather, we must have known a the abstract notion first and from which we can then compare the material things to it. 

Likewise along this vein, if all knowledge came from our senses then all our experience is of the unequal. "Then before we began to see or hear or perceive in any way, we must have had a knowledge of absolute equality, or we could not have referred to that the equal which are derived from the senses -- for to that they all aspire, and of that they fall short?" 

Strengthening the argument, Socrates points out that all of our physical senses we received at birth, and therefore, if we were to have knowledge of an ideal which precedes our physical senses, it must have been experienced before birth. This must be true, not just of equality, but of all the other absolute universals like "... beauty, goodness, justice, holiness, and all which we stamp with the name of essence in the dialectical process...". 

And so, from birth, we must have all of these ideas as innate in our minds. But it seems that we do not have this knowledge present in our memory until it is triggered, and therefore something at birth must have caused us to forget this knowledge for the time being until it is recollected by our experience of the lower. If we did all have the knowledge always present in us, then we should all be able to give a reason or explanation for this knowledge, but certainly most men cannot. And they cannot have been given to us at birth because then we would receive them and forget them at the same time. 

Therefore, in conclusion:

"... our souls must have existed before they were in the form of man -- without bodies, and must have had intelligence." 

"Then may we not say, Simmias, that if, as we are always repeating, there is an absolute beauty, and goodness, and essence in general, and to this, which is now discovered to be a previous condition of our being, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them -- assuming this to have a prior existence, then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, there would be no force in the argument? There can be no doubt that if these absolute ideas existed before we were born, then our souls must have existed before we were born, and if not the ideas, then not the souls." 

"For there is nothing which to my mind is so evident as that beauty, goodness, and other notions of which you were just now speaking have a most real and absolute existence...".

Argument for the Soul #3 - The Incomposite Nature of the Soul 

I have talked about this argument previously on the blog here. 

and here as well. 

The Greatest Tragedy - Supposing that the Physical is What is Most Real

Following argument three, Socrates returns to talking about the philosopher and death. He makes the point that if even parts of the body can stay together after someone has died, how much more the soul, and the soul which has practice philosophy and longs for the higher things because she has practiced over and over throughout life the withdrawal into herself away from the world. "And what does this mean but that she has been a true disciple of philosophy and has practiced how to die easily? And is not philosophy the practice of death?" 

The corrupt soul, on the other hand, longs for the body, believes that the body is only what is real, and cannot see the intellectual realm because they only look with their eyes. "...she is led to believe that the truth only exists in a bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste and use for the purposes of his lusts..." And so while death may be natural for the philosopher, who practices quitting the body everyday, for the materialist it is the most unnatural of things. In their longing for the body they cling to the earth until they can inhabit another body, one that caters to their own particular attachments and vices. Many of them become animals. Only the philosopher who has rid himself of attachment does not have to return to the physical world. 

Here Socrates compares philosophy to a female guide. [This also shows his influence on Boethius and his famous work The Consolation of Philosophy.] The body Socrates compares to a prison for the soul, but Lady Philosophy will guide the soul to drawn into herself and to contemplate only the highest truths about the most real things. "...to trust only to herself and her own intuitions of absolute existence...". The soul who fails this suffers the greatest tragedy of life ... to suppose that emotion, pleasure or pain, is what is most real. "... all of us naturally suppose that the object of this intense feeling is then plainest and truest: but this is not the case." This person's soul is nailed to its body and there can be no holy detachment from worldly things. For the holy soul, Lady Philosophy will protect them. 

The person who is a coward who gives up on these great questions of life. Either pursue them and find the answer, or be content with whatever is the best idea possible that may sustain someone through life. But do not retreat into apathy because these are hard questions. "...either he should discover or learn the truth about them; or, if this is impossible, I would have him take the best and most irrefragable of human notions, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life - not without risk, as I admit, if he cannot find some word of God which will more surely and safely carry him." 

Argument for the Soul #4 - The Harmony and the Lyre

Here Simmias presents an argument to Socrates in which he uses the example of a harmony and lyre. The lyre, of course, is an instrument which is made of material parts, such as wood, metal, string, and so on. But these material components allow for the creation of a harmony of musical notes which are of a qualitatively different being than the physical. "...that harmony is a thing invisible, incorporeal, fair, divine, abiding in the lyre which is harmonized, but that they lyre and the strings are matter and material, composite, earthly, and akin to morality?" So too the material elements of the body come together and the soul emerges from them. 

Cebes has a concern with the argument and poses an analogy of his own. He is convinced that the soul precedes the body, but unsure that this proves that it will survive the body. He does think that the soul is stronger than the body and so will remain around longer than the body, but this doesn't ease his mind because he has this image of the weaver and his coats. He explains an image wherein a weaver weaves a coat for himself and eventually the coat tatters, and so the weaver weaves another coat, which eventually tatters, and so weaves another coat. But now the weaver is old and though he outlived several coats of his, his final coat will outlive him and he will die. Could this not too be the case for the soul and the body? "And every soul may be said to wear out many bodies, especially in the course of a long life. For if while the man is alive the body deliquesces and decays, and yet the soul always weaves her garment anew and repairs the waste, then of course, when the soul perishes, she must have on her last garment, and this only will survive her; but then again when the soul is dead the body will at last show its native weakness, and soon pass into decay." Therefore, there is always reason to fear because we do not know when our soul will finally give out. 

Socrates takes this critique in stride and encourages them not to become skeptics because an argument is lost or overturned. That does not mean that truth doesn't exist and that there are good arguments out there. It is the truth that matters, not people's response to it. 

The Failure of the Harmony Argument

This section is incomplete

Argument for the Soul #5 - Participation in the Ideal of Immortality 

[It must be pointed out that this must be certainly where Aquinas drew inspiration for his 4th way.] 

The final argument for the immorality of the soul in The Phaedo comes towards the end, and is an argument from a "participation" in being. Socrates asks only that the hearer accept as true that absolute beauty and goodness, and the like, exist. Having accepted this, one can follow the argument. Socrates next makes the claim that if something be called beautiful, it can only be called beautiful insofar as it participates in absolute beauty. "...nothing makes a thing beautiful but the presence and participation of beauty in whatever way or manner obtained; for as to the manner I am uncertain, but I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful." 

Likewise then he continues with other examples. It is by greatness that things can become greater, by smallness that things can become less, by number and magnitude that things can be spoken of their size. These are not relative terms, but absolutes. The relative qualities must lead to ideal ones. "And if anyone assails you there, you would not mind him, or answer him until you had seen whether the consequences which follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and the best of the higher ones, until you found a resting place; but you would not refuse the principle and the consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics - at least if you wanted to discover real existence." 

And yet the ideals cannot exist in the physical world, only relative combinations. But does this contradict the earlier argument that opposites are generated from one another? Socrates must make a distinction between the ideals themselves and their instantiations in reality as this or that thing. "For then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself..." 

As an example, he uses the distinction between fire/snow and heat/cold. Heat/cold are not the same as fire/snow, and yet fire/snow are the incarnations of the principle of heat and cold. The principles cannot remain in the face of other opposite principles, rather they retreat or are destroyed. And this is not only true of the ideals, but of their instantiations. "...not only do essential opposites exclude on another, but also concrete things, which, although not in themselves opposed, contain opposites...". Physical things, while containing opposites, when confronted with the opposite of themselves will "perish or withdrawal" before being contradictory. This is likewise even with aspects of things, such as oddness as an aspect of three. It will never allow two to overtake it. "...not only opposites will not receive opposites, but also that nothing which brings the opposite will admit the opposite of that which it brings in that to which it is brought." And so when talking about the physical world we must talk about the incarnation of ideals, not the ideals themselves. 

Moving back to the soul... it is the soul that always brings life to things. Death is the opposite of life, and therefore the soul cannot receive death if she is life. What is the ideal in the soul that must be the repellent of death? This must be the ideal of immortality. If these ideals cannot admit of their opposites, and if the physical things which participate in them cannot admit of their opposites, then they must not be destroyed by them, but must flee from them and remain somewhere else. "And the same may be said of the immortal: if the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding argument shows the soul will not admit of death, or ever be dead, any more than three or the odd number will admit of the even, or fire or the heat in the fire, of the cold." But why not say that it was just destroyed by its opposite? Well, if the soul participates in the ideal of immortality, then if death destroyed the participation in the ideal then it would destroy all. 

And so if the soul has the ideal and participates in the immortal, then death can only push her out, but never destroy her. "Then when death attacks a man, the mortal portion of him may be supposed to die, but the immortal goes out of the way of death and is preserved safe and sound? True." 

Reflection on Salvation, Judgment, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell

Nearing the end of the dialogue, the end of his arguments for the soul, and the impending time of his death, Socrates concludes with a discourse about the afterlife. There is no respite for the wicked man because the soul is not going to perish. Rather, the only way forward given we have to live in eternity is that of wisdom and virtue. Only then will we be set free. "But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom." After death the souls are gathered together for judgment. Everyone needs a guide in the afterlife to take them through the process, but not one will approached the truly wicked man. He will have to wander on his own, lost. 

Socrates then sets out to give a cosmological lesson, it seems about the nature of the earth. He makes the analogy of us on earth being under water like frogs on the edge of a marsh. To us there is what seems to be most real and most the earth, but if the frog goes out of the water he sees that there is a more real existence than what he had. This is the ether. "But this is also owing to our feebleness and sluggishness, which prevent our reaching the surface of the air: for if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out and sees this world, he would see a world beyond;..." Our lowly world is corroded like the land by the brine of the marsh, whereas the world above is most pure. Socrates goes on to describe a heavenly type of existence that is the real earth. 

There is also the realm of the dead where there are rivers of fire. Socrates then describes souls which are temporarily purified for their short comings, souls which are destroyed forever because of their evil, souls which must endure hell for only a time, and those that will be blessed in heaven. "Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth without the body, in mansions fairer far than these, which may not be described, and of which the time would fail me to tell." 

The Death of Socrates 

When Socrates finishes his long discourse about the afterlife they ask if they can do anything for him. He just tells them to follow his teachings and continue their pursuit of living good lives. Then they ask how he would like to be buried, and he has to remined that again that this will only be his body. His soul will be with the blessed, and so please just do whatever they see fit. Socrates then takes a bath, sees his family for the last time, talks to the jailer about instructions for the poison, and then the time has come. They offer him a delay, like many others have taken, if he wants to indulge himself in some sensual pleasure before taking the poison, but this, of course, makes no sense to Socrates. He prays and drinks the poison. His friends weep but he tells them to stop and to hold it together. Eventually the poison takes over and right before he is about to die, he opens his eyes and says, "...'Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?'". Then he passes away. 

[This seems odd that after all of this his last words are about a trifling affair of repaying a small debt. There is almost a comical nature to it (at least as I read it), but certainly it reflects a soul that is so pure that even something that small he still wants to make sure that justice was done to the person.]