Skip to main content

Phaedo summary

Phaedo, by Plato.


Cool quote from text:

“You shall hear, for I was close to him on his right hand, seated on a sort of stool, and he on a couch which was a good deal higher. He stroked my head, and pressed the hair upon my neck--he had a way of playing with my hair;”


You can read Phaedo here: https://freeclassicebooks.com/Plato/Phaedo.pdf.


Echecrates calls upon his friend, Phaedo, to recount the story of Phaedo’s meeting with Socrates on the day of his execution, for Echecrates takes great interest in the sayings of Socrates. Pheado then goes on to recall and “repeat the entire conversation.”

The recollection begins when Phaedo and others, including Crito, are let into Socrates’ room after Socrates is let out of his chains. They talk a bit about Evenus/Euenes the poet before Socrates states that a philosopher should not fear death and even be eager for it, as long as it is not by suicide. The reason against suicide is because man are tended to and possesed by the gods, and if the gods don’t want you to die, you shouldn’t deliberately do it, just like if you wanted to utilize a cow and the cow died without serving you.

“there may be reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me.”

The group does not immediately accept the statement of looking forward to death, so Socrates attempts to justify it. Socrates resorts to reasoning from the Apology, where the afterlife will allow Socrates to live among the gods and past men, which in all is a much better existence than the mortal life. His friends think that it is not certain the afterlife is so good. Socrates asks what death is, and the agreement is that it is the separation of soul and body.

“Is not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and the body is released from the soul, what is this but death?”

Socrates then states that a philosopher desires to detach himself from the worldly and bodily concerns, and that he should seek ideals like virtue and justice and piety, which is exhibited in the soul. The body is a limitation, as it doesn’t have perfect senses, which compel people to use reason to become intelligent, and it constantly requires maintenance, like food, water and sleep.

“He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body and turn to the soul.”

Death is the separation from the body, as what was agreed upon, so death should be sought after. Death brings purity in intelligence.

Socrates then digresses to the reason why most men have bravery in the face of death is due to a presence of a larger fear. He uses an example of a soldier, who has great fear in losing his family, so he chooses death instead, that is when he and his family are being attacked by enemies. This, to Socrates, is not real wisdom. The phenomena of exchanging fears or evils is commonplace, but what should be done is replacing these fears with wisdom and intelligence.

“Yet the exchange of one fear or pleasure of pain for another fear or pleasure or pain… is not the exchange of virtue.”

Phaedo and the others accept this point, but they question whether or not there is an afterlife, or if the soul exists after death. Socrates then offers “many proofs to show that when the man is dead his soul yet exists.”

First is the point of opposites: where a thing is formed or shaped from their opposite. A basic example is that something large must have once been tiny. This is true of all opposites and processes, including division and combination, cooling and heating, etc.. Then, of course, this also applies to life and death, where something dead must come from something once alive, and conversely, something alive must come from something dead. Socrates asserts that this philosophy must be true as if the transition between life and death were just a straight line, all things would eventually die, and there would be no continuation and perpetuation of life.

“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--what other result could there be?”

This reasoning does not gain full acceptance, so Socrates brings up the theory of recollection. Recollection, in this sense, is remembering what the soul once knew. There are many abstract concepts (perfect equality does not exist in the world, yet we can still understand it) that can not be empirically observed, so one must have had previous knowledge of it before the current lifetime. When we are brought up again in the mortal life, we lose the knowledge of our soul and regain it through remembrance and recollection. This logic requires that the soul existed before life, thereby proving Socrates’ point on the life-and-death cycle.

“Socrates: But when did our souls acquire this knowledge?--not since we were born as men?

Simmias: Certainly.

Socrates: And therefore, previously?

Simmias: Yes.”

The next problem that arises among the group, mainly through Simmias and Cebes, is the uncertainty of the soul’s ability to be immortal. They think that the soul will eventually die.

“I cannot get rid of the feeling of the many to which Cebes was referring-- the feeling that when the man dies the soul will be dispersed, and that this may be the extinction of her.”

In the first response, Socrates asks if abstract qualities, like equality and beauty, can be seen. The answer is no, and that the physical objects which hold the qualities may be seen, like a garment or horse. The abstract concepts are also unchanging, for they are self-existent, “they are always what they are.” The soul is also unseen, like equality and beauty, so therefore it is also unchanging and will not disperse. It goes on to state that the soul is the ruler of the body, and therefore it is the divine while the body is the mortal. So the soul, being divine, will not perish or dissipate.

“Cebes: The soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal…

Socrates: that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable”

The two brats, Simmias and Cebes, decide to argue against Socrates and they speak of the soul as being composed of many parts.

“[the soul is] when the body is in a manner strung and held together by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them.”

Socrates bodies them and says that this would be in direct contradiction to recollection, which the two have consented to, for the composition or attunement theory says that the body is the composition of the soul, yet a body doesn’t exist in all stages of the events in the theory of recollection.

“when the body is in a manner strung and held together by the elements of hot and cold, wet and dry, then the soul is the harmony or due proportionate admixture of them.”

Another argument against Simmias and Cebes is that a soul would not be able to control its composition, as it is merely the result of the combination of parts. Socrates contends that this is untrue for the soul, as the soul is able to oppose the body and become more temperamental. The final argument against attunement is that if souls were made of parts of the body, all souls would essentially be the same. Virtues would also be a part that composes the soul, while vice would not as it can’t exist in virtue, so then all souls would be equally and fully virtuous and not at all evil, which clearly is not true.

“Socrates: because a harmony [virtue], being absolutely a harmony, has no part in the inharmonical.

Cebes: No.

Socrates; Then if all souls are equally by their nature souls, all souls of all living creatures will be equally good?

Cebes: I agree…

Socrates: And can all this be true, think you?...

Cebes: It cannot be true.”

At this point, Socrates goes further in proving that the soul is undying. Socrates conjectures the theory of an ideal form, where there is an ideal form of concepts. He then contends that an object can be described with the form (which would typically be an adjective) because it relates to the ideal form.

“If there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty should there be such... I stoutly contend that by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful… That by [absolute] beauty beautiful things become beautiful.”

These qualities can also not contain their opposite simultaneously, which relates back to the quote on harmony and inharmony. The only way for the opposite to manifest is for the original to retreat or be eliminated. The best example provided by Socrates is on height. Socrates compares himself to Pheado and Simmias, of which Pheado is the tallest and Simmias in the middle. Phaedo is the tallest because he is more closely related to tall, while Simmias can be said to be tall and short, for he is related to both absolutes. There are other examples, like that of odd and even numbers or fire and ice. Socrates utilizes this reasoning to create a rationale about causes, where a person is tall because he has more tallness, and a person is hot because he has more fire (absolute hot).

Then, if this is true, the soul can never die as it is caused by life.

“Socrates: Then whatever the soul possesses, to that she comes bearing life?

Cebes: Yes, certainly.

A small doubt arises concerning whether deathlessness can be eliminated, but it is generally agreed that this specific concept cannot. The consensus for justification is that the soul is related to the form of life itself, just like the immortal gods, they can not be destroyed. Of course, they know that the gods are indestructible.

Socrates now has a full, well-constructed argument for why death should not be feared. He then goes on to explain a myth of what the soul goes through in the afterlife, goes to take a bath, speaks to his family; and then drinks the hemlock, and dies.

His last words were to Crito, telling him to remember to give a chicken to Asclepius, because he had forgotten to. The interesting thing is that Asclepius is the god of medicine, and death was the cure to the limitation of the body in mortal life.