'Well, I myself can speak about them only from hearsay; but what I happen to have heard I don't mind telling you. Indeed, maybe it's specially fitting that someone about to make the journey to the next world should inquire and speculate as to what we imagine that journey to be like; after all, what else should one do during the time till sundown?' (61d-e)
… sometimes and for some people, that it is better for a man to be dead than alive, and for those for whom it is better to be dead, perhaps it seems a matter for wonder to you if for these men it isn’t pious to do good to themselves, but they must await another benefactor.' (62a).
Well yes, it would seem unaccountable, put that way. And yet just maybe it does have an account. The account that’s given about these things in the Mysteries …
… we men are in some sort of prison, and that one ought not to release oneself from it or run away, seems to me a lofty idea and not easy to penetrate; but still, Cebes, this much seems to me well said: it is gods who care for us, and for the gods we men are among their belongings.
… why, indeed, should truly wise men want to escape from masters who are better than themselves, and be separated from them lightly? So I think it's at you that Cebes is aiming his argument, because you take so lightly your leaving both ourselves and the gods, who are good rulers by your own admission. (63a)
'What you both say is fair, as I take you to mean that I should defend myself against these charges as if in a court of law.' (63 b)
'Very well, then,' he said; 'let me try to defend myself more convincingly before you than I did before the jury. Because if I didn't believe, Simmias and Cebes, that I shall enter the presence,
first, of other gods both wise and good, and next of dead men better than those in this world, then I should be wrong not to be resentful at death; but as it is, be assured that I expect to join the company of good men-although that point I shouldn't affirm with absolute conviction; but that I shall enter the presence of gods who are very good masters, be assured that if there's anything I should affirm on such matters, it is that. So that's why I am not so resentful, but rather am hopeful that there is something in store for those who've died-in fact, as we've long been told, something far better for the good than for the wicked.' (63c)
'Now then, with you for my jury I want to give my defence, and show with what good reason, as it seems to me, a man who has truly spent his life in philosophy feels confident when about to die, and is hopeful that, when he has died, he will win very great benefits in the other world.
Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead (64a)
Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead (64a)
What are we to make of this startling and puzzling claim? — Fooloso4
Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead (64a)
What are we to make of this startling and puzzling claim? — Fooloso4
So that's why I am not so resentful, but rather am hopeful that there is something in store for those who've died-in fact, as we've long been told, something far better for the good than for the wicked.' (63c) — Fooloso4
If this play is to be a comedy then crying and weeping are to be dispatched. — Fooloso4
I don't know but it reminded me of something else - perhaps the Stoics. — Amity
I think he is just trying to encourage his anxious young men that because they are philosophical they will be ready to die when the time comes. Not to fear it or to grieve his passing. He is setting an example of how to approach death with the right attitude. — Amity
If this play is to be a comedy then crying and weeping are to be dispatched.
— Fooloso4
No. It's a tragicomedy. — Amity
. What Socrates is trying to persuade them of is not simply that death is not so bad, but that the soul will endure and be born again. But if life is a prison, then rebirth would mean to be imprisoned once again after having been freed from life. — Fooloso4
Other people may well be unaware that all who actually engage in philosophy aright are practising nothing other than dying and being dead (64a)
What are we to make of this startling and puzzling claim? — Fooloso4
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. — Dylan Thomas
That they're examples of the Ur-religion of the Ancient Greeks, — Wayfarer
Philosophy is 'preparing for death' by letting go of the passions and attachments, as Socrates demonstrates by his calm demeanour. — Wayfarer
That they're examples of the Ur-religion of the Ancient Greeks, relfected in Orphism, which was ultimately grounded in the pre-historic Indo-European mythology of the endless caravan of reincarnation and the fallen state of mortal man. Death in this context is a return to the source of life more than the ending of it all. The philosopher, being purified, being a 'good man', has nothing to fear at death because he will be 'joining the company of good men'. Philosophy is 'preparing for death' by letting go of the passions and attachments, as Socrates demonstrates by his calm demeanour. — Wayfarer
It appears that the world is to be 'seen' by thought alone. This line drawn between sense experience and rational thought - I don't find compelling. There is an interaction.'Well now, what about things of this sort, Simmias? Do we say that there is something just, or nothing?'
'Yes, we most certainly do!'
'And again, something beautiful, and good?'
'Of course.'
'Now did you ever yet see any such things with your eyes?'
'Certainly not.'
" Such are the things, I think, Simmias, that all who are rightly called lovers of knowledge must say to one another, and must believe.* Don't you agree?'
'Emphatically, Socrates.
(67c)'there's plenty of hope for one who arrives where I'm going, that there, if anywhere, he will adequately possess the object that's been our great concern in life gone by; and thus the journey now appointed for me may also be made with good hope by any other man who regards his intellect as prepared, by having been, in a manner, purified'
(65c)When does the soul attain the truth? Because plainly, whenever it sets about examining anything in company with the body, it is completely taken in by it.' 'That's true.'
'So isn't it in reasoning, if anywhere at all, that any of the things that are become manifest to it?'
'Yes'
It appears that the world is to be 'seen' by thought alone. This line drawn between sense experience and rational thought - I don't find compelling. — Amity
to be dead is one of two things: either the dead person is nothing and has no perception of anything, or [death] happens to be, as it is said, a change and a relocation or the soul from this place here to another place (40c).
Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not.
'Goodness, Socrates, you've made me laugh, even though I wasn't much inclined to laugh just now. l imagine that most people, on hearing that, would think it very well said of philosophers-and our own countrymen would quite agree-that they are, indeed, verging on death, and that they, at any rate, are well aware that this is what philosophers deserve to undergo.' (64b)
'And that it is nothing but the separation of the soul from the body? And that being dead is this: the body's having come to be apart, separated from the soul, alone by Itself, and the soul's being apart, alone by itself, separated from the body? Death can't be anything else but that, can it?' (64c)
And certainly Simmias, most human beings are of the opinion that the man for whom none of these things is pleasant and who doesn’t have a share of them doesn’t deserve to live. In fact, the man who thinks nothing of the pleasures that come through the body is pretty much headed for death. (65a)
So when does the soul get in touch with truth?
Isn’t it in her act of reasoning, if anywhere, that something of the things that are becomes very clear to her? (65b-c)
… if we can know nothing purely in the body's company, then one of two things must be true: either knowledge is nowhere to be gained, or else it is for the dead. (66e)
“Then”, said Socrates, “if these things are true, my comrade, there’s great hope that when I arrive at the end of my journey, there - if anywhere - I shall sufficiently attain what our constant business in our bygone life has been for. (67b)
The questions of duality. Is it even possible to be a 'genuine' philosopher if it means turning away from body to soul ( or mind ) ... I think not. — Amity
However, I am not sure that that is what Socrates is saying. — Amity
He qualifies everything with 'as far as possible'. — Amity
Nevertheless, there is a focus on abstract concepts such as 'Beauty' compared to the experience of seeing things that are beautiful — Amity
What is the 'soul' ? — Amity
I think, if there is such a thing, it would involve the bodily senses — Amity
What are 'the things that are' or 'that which is' - things that exist ? — Amity
Concepts such as 'Beauty' don't exist by themselves, do they ? — Amity
Philosophy can be just as much an impure distraction as anything else... — Amity
This is a viewpoint that Plato is dedicated to challenge. Man is not the measure of all things. Truth is different from mere appearance. Beauty (and justice etc) do exist "by themselves" quite independently of our mere opinions. We can apprehend beauty (justice etc) by exercise of the intellect. Poetry and myth are not enough.
He believed all that and at the same time was one of the most poetic and mythically inclined philosophers of all time. Quite a contradiction. — Cuthbert
It appears that the world is to be 'seen' by thought alone. — Amity
Nous sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a term from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real. — Wikipedia
I think the key word is 'nous' — Wayfarer
True, and explicated in detail in the Republic, Analogy of the Divided Line, more so than the Phaedo. However the general point of nous as 'the faculty which sees what truly is', is certainly relevant across all the dialogues. — Wayfarer
… if we can know nothing purely in the body's company, then one of two things must be true: either knowledge is nowhere to be gained, or else it is for the dead. (66e)
The individual nous is in turn illumined by the Cosmic Nous or Divine Mind. So, there is a continuum extending from Ultimate Reality all the way down to the lowest levels of experience or existence. — Apollodorus
In which of the dialogues does Plato say this? — Fooloso4
So to say that ‘the real can only be discerned by thought’ doesn’t convey what depth of the ‘idea of the good’, — Wayfarer
'So isn't it in reasoning, if anywhere at all, that any of the things that are become manifest to it?' (65b)
...the presumption is still that things are guided by intelligence, not by merely material causes. — Wayfarer
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