It is striking that this set of four arguments includes many of the most influential tenets of Platonism, including the assumptions that the body is less good, less strong and less long-lasting than the soul and the forms, and that the soul is a person's true essence. Plato sets his own philosophi- cal system in the middle of the story of Socrates' death. The Phaedo seems to dramatise the idea that the master's death makes way for Platonic philosophy.
But one could also argue that Socrates' death seems to undermine Platonic logic. All four arguments offered by 'Socrates' for the soul's immortality are riddled with logical errors and false premises.
Plato may well have realised that he had not entirely proved his point. Within the fiction of the dialogue, Socrates almost acknowledges that death may remain something of a mystery. He repeatedly hints at a fifth argument, from divine providence or purpose. Socrates criticises scientific or materialistic kinds of explanation and mocks the idea that he could explain why he is in prison by saying, 'because my body is composed of bones and sinews'. The real reasons for his death, he declares, are
that the Athenians decided to condemn me, and I decided to sit here, thinking it right to stay and undergo what- ever punishment they award me; because - by the Dog!
I reckon these sinews and bones of mine would have been somewhere near Megara or Boetia a long time ago, carried off there by the belief that it was the best option
if I didn't think it more just and honourable to submit to any penalty ordained by my country, rather than desert- ing and running away (Phaedo 98e-99a).
Proper explanations must appeal to purpose, not mate- rial cause. By analogy, he hints that there must be a 'reason' why we all die, one that has to do not with the destruction of our bodies, but with the divine purpose for which we exist, and the decisions of noble minds.
Finally, bad arguments are followed by good myth. Socrates describes a rich, fantastical landscape of a gem-encrusted upper world, into which the soul is released after death. Even myth fails when he tries to describe the fate of philosophers: 'All who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy live without bodies for the rest of time, and come to dwellings still more beautiful than these, which it is not easy to describe, nor do we have time to do so' (Phaedo ii4c).
The Phaedo suggests, then, that the living may not ever get complete access to the world of the dead. Perhaps logic can never fully illuminate the experience of dying. And even story-telling may not be able to show us what it is like to be dead. Socrates gestures towards what may lie beyond death. But he can do no more. The text itself ends when the master is silent.
We might view these arguments less as logical proofs than as magic charms made of words - like the charms intended, as Cebes suggests, to persuade 'the child who lives inside us all' that he need not fear the 'hobgoblin' of death. The philosopher wears logic as an amulet around his neck, which allows him to die like a man, not weeping like a child for his own lost life.
the last scene
The final pages of the Phaedo evoke, in vivid detail, the last hours of Socrates. Plato creates a sharp distinction between Socrates' death as he himself experiences it, and the scene as it appears to the spectators: the friends of Socrates and the reader. It is a scene that seems to be radically different depending on your point of view. For Socrates' family and friends, his death is tragic; but for Socrates himself, it is the site of calm, joyful triumph.
Socrates, from his own perspective, is not a tragic hero: rather, he resembles Euripides' Alcestis, a woman who tri- umphed over death, sacrificing herself to save her cowardly husband - in a drama which was performed in place of a satyr play. But there is a sharp contrast between the characters, in that Alcestis acts for the sake of her family. Socrates, on the other hand, seems willing to cause pain to his followers by embracing death and denying them even the opportunity to express their grief in social ritual. He takes upon himself all the parts in the drama: he even lays out his own corpse. The other characters are left with only powerless tears.
'You go to live, and I to die; which is better, the god alone knows', says Socrates at the end of the Apology (42a). But in the Phaedo it seems fairly clear that Socrates has seized the best thing for himself. Like a swan, he sings with joy at the time of his death, knowing by grace of Apollo, god of proph- ecy, that he goes to eternal happiness (Phaedo 84d-85b).
On Socrates' first appearance in the Phaedo, he is sitting with his wife and young son in the prison. When the male friends enter the room, Xanthippe begins to weep and waiclass="underline"
When she saw us, she let out a shriek and said all the kinds of things which women usually say on such occa- sions: 'O Socrates, this is the last time that your friends will see you, and you them.'
Socrates turned to Crito. 'Crito,' he said, 'let some- body take her home.'
Some of Crito's people took her away, howling and beating her breast. (Phaedo, 60a)
Socrates makes no further comment. He begins chattering about pleasure, pain and the sensation in his legs, now that the fetters have been taken off. It is clear that Xanthippe is a metaphorical fetter, or 'ball and chain', whom the philoso- pher has at last got rid of.
This is a shocking moment, made emphatic by its position at the start of the dialogue: these are the first words Socrates speaks in the Phaedo. Xanthippe offers a gesture of sympathy as well as of loss. She does not speak of her own grief or her son's bereavement. Rather, she tries to enter Socrates' own mental world, expressing the loss he must feel at depart- ing from his male friends, and their grief for him. Socrates utterly rejects her attempt to engage with him. He offers no reply and does not even say goodbye. He makes no mention of the little boy. We later learn, in a parenthesis, that his sons and womenfolk are brought to him again, for a brief visit before he takes the hemlock.
In Greek society, the work of mourning - marked not by wearing black but by cutting off the hair and performing ritual acts of wailing - was particularly associated with women. In the Phaedo, Socrates denies the value of such work. He robs the survivors of their desire for funeral rites. One of the most moving moments in the dialogue comes in the middle of the argument about the soul's superiority and immortality. We are suddenly reminded of the existence of Socrates' living body, which will soon be dead. Phaedo, who worked in a brothel before joining Socrates' circle, must have been a beautiful young boy at the time of Socrates' death. It is, we remember, Phaedo who tells the whole story. Faced with the objections of Simmias and Cebes to his proofs for immortality, Socrates reaches down to fondle Phaedo's hair.
He stroked my head and gathered up the hair on the nape of my neck in his hand - he was in the habit of playing with my hair sometimes - and said, 'Tomorrow, Phaedo, maybe you will cut off this lovely hair'. 'I suppose so, Socrates,' Phaedo replies. 'Not if you take my advice,' says Socrates. 'You should cut it off today, and I will cut my own hair too, if our argument dies and we cannot bring it back to life.' (Phaedo 89b-89c)
Socrates urges Phaedo to trust the power of argument and conversation - logos - to discover the truth. The death of Socrates matters less than the truth of his words. If we mourn, we must mourn not our dead friends, but abstractions.
When the sun sinks low, Socrates withdraws to take a bath: 'because I think it is better to bathe before drinking the poison, so that the women will not have to bother to wash my corpse' (ii5a). He thus appropriates for himself all the tasks traditionally assigned to the surviving family. Death, which had been an event to be experienced and shared by the whole community, becomes now utterly solitary. Socrates regards himself as the only person affected by his death.