PATIENT
The Phaedo, on the soul
COMPOSED
c. 380–360 BCE (approx.)
FORM
A dialogue, retold by Phaedo
SETTING
A prison cell, the last afternoon
CHIEF COMPLAINT
Does the soul survive death, and does a philosopher have any reason to fear it?
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
On the last day of his life, Socrates spends the afternoon with his friends arguing that the soul survives death and that a philosopher has no reason to fear it. Then, at sunset, he drinks the poison, and the friends who could not stop crying are told to be quiet and have patience. Phaedo retells it to Echecrates, and says he did not pity Socrates, who died so fearlessly and with such gracious words that he seemed blessed. It is the most famous death scene in philosophy, and the arguments that lead up to it are among the most debated.
REVIEW OF SYSTEMS
PRACTICE OF DEATH
Philosophy as a lifelong rehearsal for the separation of soul and body.
RECOLLECTION
Learning as remembering. The argument from absolute equality, and the first full statement of the Forms.
THE SOUL
What knows, leads and survives. The thing the three arguments, two objections and one myth are about.
MISOLOGY
Hatred of argument. The danger Socrates names in the middle of the dialogue and tells his friends to avoid.
A GOOD DEATH
The dialogue is partly a defense of Socrates' calm. The arguments are offered as hope, not proof.
PHYSICAL EXAM — STYLE & STRUCTURE
- —A dialogue within a frame: Phaedo narrates the afternoon to Echecrates, so we hear it secondhand and in order.
- —Arguments are met by real objections, from Simmias and Cebes, and the dialogue takes them seriously.
- —Near the end, once the arguments have run out, comes a myth of the true earth and its rivers, about judgment and purification.
- —Plato himself is named as absent, ill, on the day.
- —The death scene is the point the whole afternoon leads to, and it is told plainly.
ASSESSMENT & PLAN
The third of the last-days dialogues, after the Apology and the Crito: the Apology shows Socrates defending his life, and the Phaedo shows him facing its end, with the same conviction that no evil can happen to a good man. It is also the Platonic counterpart to Lucretius, who argues that death is nothing because the soul dies with the body. Modern philosophers have generally found each argument flawed but have valued the dialogue for the quality of the objections. For a first read, try G. M. A. Grube (Hackett), David Gallop (Oxford) or the Penguin Last Days of Socrates; the full guide quotes Benjamin Jowett's public-domain translation.