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PlatoThe Last Days of Socrates
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Immortality of the Soul
Socrates’s argument for the immortality of the soul begins in Euthyphro when he differentiates between piety as people experience and enact it and piety as a thing in and of itself, existing beyond the reach of human conception. This assertion acts as a first step that sets the conditions for Socrates’s further examination in Phaedo. His defense in the Apology frames oracles as divine truth tellers whose meaning humans can only guess. This is not a new conception for ancient Greeks, but Socrates deploys it in a new way. By arguing that his philosophical methods are a divine imperative, an earnest attempt to interpret the oracle naming him the wisest man, Socrates affirms the existence of a realm of truth beyond human access.
Claiming that his gift lies in his wisdom-to-know-that-he-does-not-know, Socrates, almost paradoxically, establishes himself as the person best suited to examine the unknowable. Crito further establishes his authority, as Socrates redirects Crito’s concern away from what random people will think to the question of what is just. As with Socrates’s followers in the Apology, Crito’s struggle demonstrates how difficult it is to act in accordance with the ideal, in this case justice. Socrates’s unique expertise is reaffirmed, setting the stage for his fully developed argument on the soul’s immortality in Phaedo.
Socrates’s argument for the soul’s immortality relies on a series of if/then propositions, each of which is developed through analogy, extrapolating from concrete to abstract. If it is true, for example, that opposites come from each other, as big comes from small and small from big, etc., then it must also be true that life comes from death and death comes from life. This is a familiar regenerative cycle in ancient Greek cosmology that Socrates extends, via his argument of affinity, to place the soul beyond the reach of change. Since things come from their opposites, everything must have an opposite. Since body and soul have been established as opposites, and the body changes, then the soul cannot also change—otherwise it would be the body. Socrates anticipates the limitations of if/then propositions within philosophical inquiry in the dialogue. However, he posits that even if everything he has said about the soul being immortal proves false, and a death is oblivion, that is a fine outcome because the time spent contemplating justice and the good benefits not only one’s soul but the city and those living in it.
Philosophy as the New Hero
In the history of Western philosophy, Plato and his Socrates are treated as foundational figures whose ideas are woven through all subsequent philosophical texts. This can obscure the ways Plato and Socrates engage with the ideas and challenges of their time. Plato makes repeated use of ancient Greek hero concepts and imagery across the dialogues. Brought together as a collection, they can be read as a portrait of Socrates engaged in a series of labors, rational/philosophical as opposed to physical/geographic with the traditional hero. His discussion with Euthyphro, his defense speech, his attempt to convince Crito of the justness of accepting the death penalty, his attempt to comfort his followers when the moment of separation arrives—each presents as a challenge that Socrates must meet rationally, wisely, and peacefully, behaving with appropriate piety and justice.
The figure of the hero was central in ancient Greek society and occupied an intermediate space between the living and the gods they worshipped. Portrayed by poets as an earlier generation of mortals who were direct descendants of the gods and in closer contact with them, heroes could be thought of as superhuman. In this sense, they could be volatile, given to excesses, and potentially dangerous. Plato’s Socrates is portrayed as close to the god Apollo. He is dangerous in that his dialogues make people uncomfortable and uncertain about things they do not wish to be uncomfortable and uncertain about. Fulfilling the mission Apollo has entrusted to Socrates has made him subject to excess, but Plato subverts the dangerous excess of the traditional hero by suggesting that it is not Socrates who has gone too far but the citizens of Athens. Their unwillingness to face the limitations of their knowledge have made them hateful, putting Socrates to death though he has only pursued the truth.
In the Phaedo, Socrates describes himself and Phaedo as Heracles and Iolaus, the hero and his companion. Which is not as important as the presence of both as necessary for the success of the quest. The dialogue cannot persist through the efforts of a single figure but requires the active participation of the many. In his calm determination to subject himself, his assumptions, and his beliefs to constant scrutiny, Socrates is the exemplar of the philosopher but not philosophy itself. The hero, then, is not the man because any one man is ephemeral. The hero is philosophy, the thing itself, the eternal.
Piety and Justice
The dialogues in The Last Days of Socrates were composed during a turbulent period in Athenian history. In 404 BCE, they had lost a long and disastrous war against Sparta. During the war, they had unsuccessfully attempted to expand their empire in Sicily, losing some 40,000 men, and they had committed atrocities large and small. They sacked the island of Melos, killing the men and enslaving the women and children, because the island refused to submit to Athenian rule. In 406 BCE, Athens won a naval battle of Arginusae, but a storm resulted in massive casualties among the Athenian sailors. When the generals returned to Athens, they faced outrage from the families of the sailors whose lives were lost. They were hastily tried and executed, contrary to the laws of the city, an event Socrates references in the Apology.
Set against the events of the time, in a culture whose institutions were rooted in their understanding of and ability to satisfy the divine, the question of piety was an urgent concern. Socrates’s questions to Euthyphro and the latter’s subsequent inability to define piety could be anxiety-provoking for citizens who prefer not to acknowledge that they do not have the answers they may believe they need. At the end of the dialogue, the essence of piety remains unresolved, beyond doing what is pleasing to the gods.
In an Athenian context, this would mean fulfilling the rituals, sacrifices, and offerings instituted by the state. In a collectivist culture, to ignore these rituals, sacrifices, and offerings endangers everyone. From this perspective, Athenians could be said to be justifiably anxious about Socrates’s activities, not so much because he does not fulfill the ritual observances but perhaps because he undermined people’s confidence in them. Euthyphro’s inability to define piety, in the context of the four dialogues, sets up Socrates’s defense: He explains his mission within the context of Athenian state religion, even as he diverges from it. Since piety cannot be defined other than as something that is pleasing to the gods, and Socrates has undertaken his mission to obey Apollo’s oracle, then he cannot be said to be acting contrary to traditional beliefs. He even suggests, in his defense, that it is he, rather than the citizens who are trying him, who is the pious one, and his service to the state is so invaluable that they should be paying for his food.
Socrates’s refusal to escape into exile may be understood as a further expression of his piety since piety is a part of justice, and justice is concerned with correct behavior among humans. Socrates submits himself to the laws of the state, whatever the outcome. To accept the law when it suits him and ignore it when it fails to would be inconsistent, disrespectful, and contrary to piety and justice. If everything comes from its opposite, then perhaps the death of Socrates, as an unjust act, will provoke its opposite among Socrates’s followers, inspiring them to continue the dialogue that he has initiated.
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