“For myself” (says Sokrates) “I fear that in these my last hours I depart from the true spirit of philosophy — like unschooled men, who, when in debate, think scarcely at all how the real question stands, but care only to make their own views triumphant in the minds of the auditors. Between them and me there is only thus much of difference. I regard it as a matter of secondary consequence, whether my conclusions appear true to my hearers; but I shall do my best to make them appear as much as possible true to myself.[11] My calculation is as follows: mark how selfish it is. If my conclusion as to the immortality of the soul is true, I am better off by believing it: if I am in error, and death be the end of me, even then I shall avoid importuning my friends with grief, during these few remaining hours: moreover my error will not continue with me — which would have been a real misfortune — but will be extinguished very shortly. Such is the frame of mind, Simmias and Kebês, with which I approach the debate. Do you follow my advice: take little thought of Sokrates, but take much more thought of the truth. If I appear to you to affirm any thing truly, assent to me: but if not, oppose me with all your powers of reasoning: Be on your guard lest, through earnest zeal, I should deceive alike myself and you, and should leave the sting in you, like a bee, at this hour of departure.”
[11] Plato, Phædon, p. 91 A-C. Οὐ γὰρ ὅπως τοῖς παροῦσιν ἂ ἐγὼ λέγω δόξει ἀληθῆ εἶναι, προθυμήσομαι, εἰ μὴ εἴη πάρεργον, ἄλλ’ ὅπως αὐτῷ ἐμοὶ ὅ τι μάλιστα δόζει οὕτως ἔχειν. λογίζομαι γάρ, ὦ φίλε ἕταιρε — καὶ θέασαι ὡς πλεονεκτικῶς — εἰ μὲν τυγχάνει ἀληθῆ ὄντα ἃ λέγω, καλῶς δὴ ἔχει τὸ πεισθῆναι· εἰ δὲ μηδέν ἐστι τελευτήσαντι, ἀλλ’ οὖν τοῦτόν γε τὸν χρόνον αὐτὸν τὸν πρὸ τοῦ θανάτου ἧττον τοῖς παροῦσιν ἀηδὴς ἔσομαι ὀδυρόμενος … ὑμεῖς μέντοι, ἂν ἐμοὶ πείθησθε, σμικρὸν φροντίσαντες Σωκράτους, τῆς δὲ ἀληθείας πολὺ μᾶλλον, ἐὰν μέν τι ὑμῖν δοκῶ ἀληθὲς λέγειν, ξυνομολογήσατε· εἰ δὲ μή, παντὶ λόγῳ ἀντιτείνετε, εὐλαβούμενοι ὅπως μὴ ἐγὼ ὑπὸ προθυμίας ἅμα ἐμαυτόν τε καὶ ὑμᾶς ἐξαπατήσας, ὥσπερ μέλιττα τὸ κέντρον ἐγκαταλιπὼν οἰχήσομαι.
Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the liberty of individual dissent.
This is a remarkable passage, as illustrating the spirit and purpose of Platonic dialogues. In my preceding Chapters, I have already shown, that it is no part of the aim of Sokrates to thrust dogmas of his own into other men’s minds as articles of faith. But then, most of these Chapters have dwelt upon Dialogues of Search, in which Sokrates has appeared as an interrogator, or enquirer jointly with others: scrutinising their opinions, but disclaiming knowledge or opinions of his own. Here, however, in the Phædon, the case is altogether different. Sokrates is depicted as having not only an affirmative opinion, but even strong conviction, on a subject of great moment: which conviction, moreover, he is especially desirous of preserving unimpaired, during his few remaining hours of life. Yet even here, he manifests no anxiety to get that conviction into the minds of his friends, except as a result of their own independent scrutiny and self-working reason. Not only he does not attempt to terrify them into believing, by menace of evil consequences if they do not — but he repudiates pointedly even the gentler machinery of conversion, which might work upon their minds through attachment to himself and reverence for his authority. His devotion is to “reasoned truth”: he challenges his friends to the fullest scrutiny by their own independent reason: he recognises the sentence which they pronounce afterwards as valid for them, whether concurrent with himself or adverse. Their reason is for them, what his reason is for him: requiring, both alike (as Sokrates here proclaims), to be stimulated as well as controlled by all-searching debate — but postulating equal liberty of final decision for each one of the debaters. The stress laid by Plato upon the full liberty of dissenting reason, essential to philosophical debate — is one of the most memorable characteristics of the Phædon. When we come to the treatise De Legibus (where Sokrates does not appear), we shall find a totally opposite view of sentiment. In the tenth book of that treatise Plato enforces the rigid censorship of an orthodox persecutor, who makes his own reason binding and compulsory on all.
Phædon and Symposion — points of analogy and contrast.
The natural counterpart and antithesis to the Phædon, is found in the Symposion.[12] In both, the personality of Sokrates stands out with peculiar force: in the one, he is in the fulness of life and enjoyment, along with festive comrades — in the other, he is on the verge of approaching death, surrounded by companions in deep affliction. The point common to both, is, the perfect self-command of Sokrates under a diversity of trying circumstances. In the Symposion, we read of him as triumphing over heat, cold, fatigue, danger, amorous temptation, unmeasured potations of wine, &c.:[13] in the Phædon, we discover him rising superior to the fear of death, and to the contagion of an afflicted company around him. Still, his resolute volition is occasionally overpowered by fits of absorbing meditation, which seize him at moments sudden and unaccountable, and chain him to the spot for a long time. There is moreover, in both dialogues, a streak of eccentricity in his character, which belongs to what Plato calls the philosophical inspiration and madness, rising above the measure of human temperance and prudence.[14] The Phædon depicts in Sokrates the same intense love of philosophy and dialectic debate, as the Symposion and Phædrus: but it makes no allusion to that personal attachment, and passionate admiration of youthful beauty, with which, according to those two dialogues, the mental fermentation of the philosophical aspirant is asserted to begin.[15] Sokrates in the Phædon describes the initial steps whereby he had been led to philosophical study:[16] but the process is one purely intellectual, without reference to personal converse with beloved companions, as a necessity of the case. His discourse is that of a man on the point of death — “abruptis vitæ blandimentis”[17] — and he already looks upon his body, not as furnishing the means of action and as requiring only to be trained by gymnastic discipline (as it appears in the Republic), but as an importunate and depraving companion, of which he is glad to get rid: so that the ethereal substance of the soul may be left to its free expansion and fellowship with the intelligible world, apart from sense and its solicitations.
[12] Thus far I agree with Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Phædon, p. 9, &c.); though I do not think that he has shown sufficient ground for his theory regarding the Symposion and the Phædon, as jointly intended to depict the character of the philosopher, promised by Plato as a sequel to the Sophist and the Statesman. (Plato, Sophist. p. 217; Politic. p. 257.)
[13] Plato, Symposion, pp. 214 A, 219 D, 220-221-223 D: compare Phædon, p. 116, c. 117. Marcus Antoninus (i. 16) compares on this point his father Antoninus Pius to Sokrates: both were capable of enjoyment as well as of abstinence, without ever losing their self-command. Ἐφαρμόσειε δ’ ἂν αὐτῷ (Antoninus P.) τὸ περὶ τοῦ Σωκράτους μνημονευόμενον, ὅτι καὶ ἀπέχεσθαι καὶ ἀπολαύειν ἐδύνατο τούτων, ὧν πολλοὶ πρός τε τὰς ἀποχὰς ἀσθενῶς, καὶ πρὸς τὰς ἀπολαύσεις ἐνδοτικῶς, ἔχουσιν. Τὸ δὲ ἰσχύειν, καὶ ἔτι καρτερεῖν καὶ ἐννήφειν ἑκατέρῳ, ἀνδρὸς ἔστιν ἄρτιον καὶ ἀηττητον ψυχὴν ἔχοντος.
[14] Plato, Symposion, pp. 174-175-220 C-D. Compare Phædon, pp. 84 C, 95 E.
[15] Plato, Sympos. p. 215 A, p. 221 D. οἷος δὲ οὑτοσὶ γέγονε τὴν ἀτοπίαν ἄνθρωπος, καὶ αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ λόγοι αὐτοῦ, οὐδ’ ἐγγὺς ἂν εὕροι τις ζητῶν, &c. p. 218 B: πάντες γὰρ κεκοινωνήκατε τῆς φιλοσόφου μανίας τε καὶ βακχείας, &c. About the φιλόσοφος μανία, compare Plato, Phædrus, pp. 245-250.