Plato’s PHAEDO, Part 10

Plato's Phaedo is one of his most read, and certainly one of the most dramatically interesting of his dialogues. It gives the account of Socrates' death-day, but contains a great deal of Plato's own philosophical musings. For the scholarly, this dialogue is from Plato's early middle period, in which we think he was using Socrates as the mouthpiece for his own philosophical theories, whereas in the earlier dialogues - for example, Euthyphro, Apology and perhaps Crito, Socrates was much closer to his actual practice as the "gadfly of Athens." Phaedo almost certainly was written before Republic, and in many ways prefigures it. One of my favorite passages from Phaedo is when the character Simmias says this to Socrates on the topic of life-after-death:

It seems to me, Socrates, and perhaps to you too, that definite knowledge of such matters is either impossible or extremely difficult in this life. That said, however, it is a very faint-hearted person who does not scrutinize the arguments about these matters in every manner possible, without giving up until totally exhausted by the enquiry. For we should proceed on these issues in one of two ways, either learn or discover how matters stand, or if this is impossible, then adopt the best and most unassailable argument of humankind, climb on board that, as if it were a raft in a perilous sea, and sail upon it through life, unless one can travel on a more secure vessel, some divine word, safely and free from danger.

This passage speaks to me of faith in a way consonant with Socrates's views (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, with Plato's), and has played an important role in my own thinking about the nature of faith in human life.

There are innumerable other valuable insights to gain here, not least the noble death to which Socrates committed himself, and the manner in which his death prefigured that of the Lord Jesus.

Enjoy!

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