Teaching and the Decline of Liberty at Credulity and Curiosity in A ...

Man and Nature in Plato's Phaedo 163
together,"
soul's internal attempt to grasp itself by itself, to "collect itself and to
escape the things which are bodily
THE FIRST THREE ARGUMENTS
The Nature Argument
appear as the highest freedom.
There were numerous difficulties with the apology. It contained no real proof
that the soul can exist in complete separation from the body or that like beings
will exist together after death, i.e., the pure souls with what is pure. Neither was
there a proof that the gods exist and rule benevolently. Cebes states the problem
in the following way: Many people fear that the soul scatters at death and is no
where; if it does exist collected together itself by itself, and if it has some power
and prudence then there is reason for hope. (Cf. 69e-70b.) The three arguments
which follow respond to the difficulty as it is set forth by Cebes. The first argu
ment deals in the abstract with the power of the soul after death. The next argu
ment takes up the issue of the prudence of soul. The third is concerned with the
matter of the soul's collectedness.
We turn now to the nature argument the first part of what Socrates refers to
as an actual examination into the things that concern us about the soul (70c). This
argument is based upon an analysis of what must be necessary if nature is to be
perfect (or not "maimed"
or "imperfect,"
cf. 7ie). As has been mentioned be
fore, it constitutes a radical departure from the tenets of the apology section.
Socrates sets out to prove that the soul always exists by proving that the living
are generated out of the dead. Although to begin with he recalls the ancient say
ing that the souls exist in Hades, conjuring up an image of individual souls hav
ing some resemblance to the living person, ultimately
unsuited to proving that any individual soul exists after death.
this argument is quite
Socrates argues that if all generated beings come to be from their opposites
then the living must come to be from the dead. Each generated being must repay
the others by going
into its opposite otherwise all would come to have the
same form, experience the same thing and would stop coming to be (72b). From
the fact that things have not come to be in this state Socrates will surmise some
thing about the necessary structure of things. An underlying assumption which
he makes is that the material of generation is limited, able to be used up. "And if
all should become compounded, but would not separate again, quickly
happen as Anaxagoras said, 'all things
together'"
(72c).
it would
In the final stage of the argument, Socrates contends that even though the liv
ing things presently come to be from other living things, if all the living should
die off, then there are no means by which all would not be spent up into death un
again"
(avaBtojoxeo^ai, cf. 7ie-72a, 72d)
less the process of "coming to life
exists the coming to be of the living again from what is nonliving.