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A. Introduction

• Setting: the ship of Theseus has just returned from Delos so that the execution can finally proceed. As explained in the Crito, Socrates has refused to escape because he feels that he owes obedience to the laws.
• Socrates’ writing poetry in obedience to a dream sent by the god (60c-61b) is probably a fictional touch added by Plato to emphasize Socrates’ piety.
• The fact that Simmias and Cebes are students of Philolaus (61b) indicates that they are Pythagoreans. That is why Socrates is surprised that they are not accustomed to thinking of philosophy as a preparation for death. Incidentally, the term 'philosophy’ (= philos + sophia, love of wisdom) was coined by the Pythagoreans.
• Cebes asks: if death is good, why is it wrong to kill oneself? Socrates replies that we are possessions of the gods so it is up to them to decide when we die (62b-c). Cebes: but then shouldn’t we fear being parted from them by death? Socrates: no, for death is not such a separation, but is a journey to be with the gods (63b-c).
• Note that Socrates is now confident that one of the two possibilities he sketched at the end of the Apology is the correct one. Simmias asks how he has come to be so confident (63c-d). Socrates promises to explain. Instead he first discusses what it means to speak of philosophy as a preparation for death.

  B. Platonic Dualism

• There are three reasons why the body is a hindrance in the pursuit of wisdom:
  • The senses are unreliable and deceptive, so that the soul does best in pursuing truth when she has “dismissed the body” and is “as much alone with herself as possible” (65c).
  • To satisfy the demands of the body, such as hunger and thirst, is a continual drain on one’s time (66c).
  • The passions, desires, and fears introduced by the body are a distraction and can even lead to wars and death (66c-d).
    
  Since the body is a hindrance in the pursuit of wisdom, obviously the philosopher will disregard it as much as possible. And since death is nothing but the total separation of soul and body (64c), the philosopher’s life may be said to be a preparation for death.
• This low evaluation of the body is an ethical and epistemological corollary of “Platonic dualism,” the view that body and soul are separate entities and that the soul merely dwells in the body as in a vessel. Note that in some later dialogues, particularly the Symposium and Timaeus, Plato takes a more positive view of the body.
• Part of the philosopher’s duty, then, is not to be “defiled” (67a) by the body. (Cf. 80e-84b for a more elaborate description of how preoccupation with the body defiles the soul.) This invocation of purity explains why Socrates is confident that in the afterlife one who has ardently pursued wisdom will dwell with the gods. “When we are thus pure and released from its [the body’s] follies, we shall dwell, I suppose, with others who are pure like ourselves, and we shall of ourselves know all that is pure . . . For I think that the impure is not allowed to attain to the pure” (67a-b).
• Note that, formally speaking, Socrates is committing a fallacy; he treats a condition that is necessary for being with the gods (purity) as if it were a sufficient condition. What is really going on is that Socrates has a faith that the gods will allow those who are sufficiently purified to enter their company. That is linked to another article of faith: certain knowledge is ultimately possible. Since we do not attain such knowledge in the present life, it must be available in the life to come.

  C. Introduction of the Forms

• During this discussion Socrates “slips in” a reference to the Forms (65d-e). Actually the word “Form” (eidos) does not appear until 102a. Here he speaks only of the Just Itself (to dikaion auto), the Beautiful Itself, etc. Why he slips them in without more fanfare will become apparent later in the dialogue.
  
• Note the examples he gives: Justice, Beauty, the Good (not “goodness”!), Size, Health, Strength. Note also (a) the Forms are perceived by the intellect rather than the senses; (b) they are the “essence or real being” (ousia) of things (65e); (c) to pursue them is to pursue “pure and absolute being” (66a).
  
• The Forms come up again while Socrates is arguing for the immortality of the soul. One of his arguments is that, given the doctrine of recollection, the soul must exist prior to birth and therefore must be able to exist after death as well (72e-73a). This prompts Cebes to ask for a defense of recollection. Socrates first gives two arguments that echo the Meno:
  
  • People can discover something they thought they did not know merely as a result of being asked questions.
    
  • People understand the significance of geometrical diagrams. (73a-b)
    
  The second argument was not actually discussed in the Meno, and Socrates does not pursue it further here. Instead he goes on to a completely new argument, one that turns out to involve the Forms.
  

      Here’s the argument:
  

1. Any pair of sensible objects that are equal will sometimes not appear equal to different persons or in different respects (the Greek is ambiguous) (74b).
   
2. Therefore they fall short of being “the Equal Itself” (74c).
   
3. In order to be able to recognize that they fall short, we must be comparing them to the Equal Itself as a standard (74d-e).
   
4. Therefore we must already have known the Equal Itself before we encountered this pair of equals (74e).
   
5. Since steps (1)-(4) can be repeated for any pair of equals, we must have had knowledge of the Equal Itself before we encountered equal things (75a).
   
6. Since we possess the senses from birth, we must have acquired this knowledge before birth (75b-c).
   
7. A similar account can be given for Justice, Beauty, the Good, and all the other Forms (75c-d).
   
8. We do not retain such knowledge after birth, for if we did we could give an account of these Forms (76b).
   
9. Therefore we must have possessed such knowledge before birth and now be reminded of it by sensible objects. This process is fittingly called Recollection. (76c)
   

• Note that nowhere in this argument does Socrates invoke the idea that sensible particulars change whereas the Forms do not. Later, however, he adds this as another respect in which sensible particulars fall short of the Forms (78d-e).
  
• Although the argument is not aimed at proving the existence of the Forms, steps (1)-(5) may be construed in that way. Essentially Socrates is arguing that sensory experience does not explain our possession of concepts such as those equality, beauty, the good, and so on. Since these concepts are not “given” in experience, we must have some other means of acquiring them—namely, by apprehending the Forms.
  
• Thus construed, Socrates’ argument is similar to that of the Rationalists in the 17th century. For example, Descartes argues in Meditations III that since the idea of a perfect substance is not derived from experience, it must be innate, i.e., directly implanted in the mind by God. Even earlier, Augustine translated the Platonic theory of Recollection into Christian terms in his theory of divine illumination. In essence, such thinkers point out that “before” in steps (4) and (5) need not mean temporally before. It might mean only logically before, the point being that we acquire concepts such as Equality, Beauty, and so on “apart from” or “independently of” sense experience.
  

  D. The Method of Hypothesis

• We pick the discussion up at 95a. Cebes has suggested that the soul may last longer than the body, perhaps even through several lives, but that ultimately it decays and perishes (87a-88b). Socrates is preparing to refute that theory. He remarks that to do so will require a thorough discussion of “the causes of generation and decay” (95e).
  
• This leads Socrates to some autobiographical reflections. Please remember that these reflections are probably not an accurate depiction of the historical Socrates. They are put into the mouth of Socrates by Plato for his own purposes. Presumably Plato wants both to express his own philosophy and to articulate certain ideas that he believes to have been implicit in what the historical Socrates actually did believe.
  
• Socrates first recounts how as a young man he was fascinated by physical science. Ultimately he grew dissatisfied, however, because physical science takes for granted certain ideas that Socrates found paradoxical. For example, it assumes that the same result (two) can be achieved by opposite means--placing separate items together or dividing a single item (97a-b).
  
• While thus perplexed, Socrates read the writings of Anaxagoras. He was delighted with Anaxagoras’s claim that Mind orders and is the cause of all things. Here, he thought, was a philosopher who will go beyond ordinary physical explanations to explain the structure of reality in terms of why it is best that things be the way they are. (97b-98b)
  
• Much to his chagrin, Socrates soon found that even Anaxagoras really only gave physical explanations like everyone else. Socrates argues that to give such explanations while ignoring the critical role of Mind is like explaining why a man is sitting in terms of the arrangement of his body. The bodily arrangement is a necessary condition for the man to be sitting, but it does not explain why the man is sitting. Likewise, physical explanations will never reveal the fact that “it is the binding force of good which really binds and holds things together” (99c).
  
• Lacking such a full explanation, Socrates adopted a second-best way. This is the “method of hypothesis.” It consists in assuming whatever principle or conception (logos) seems strongest, and then seeing what follows from it (100a). Presumably there will be no reason to abandon the principle unless its consequences prove to be inconsistent (101d). Eventually you should try to give an account of the principle you have chosen in terms of some higher principle and then to explain that principle in terms of another that is yet higher, continuing until you reach “a satisfactory resting place” (101e).
  
• The principle that Socrates has chosen is that there exists a Beauty Itself, a Good Itself, and so on (100b). That is why, when he introduced the Forms, he did not try to prove their existence. The existence of the Forms is a hypothesis he has laid down in order to see what follows from it—in particular, whether it can fill the explanatory gap left by mere physical explanations.
  

  E. The Forms and Sensible Objects

• That raises the question of whether (and how) Forms can be used to explain the properties of sensible objects. Socrates first proposes what he later (105c) will call a “safe and stupid” answer. It is that something is beautiful because of the “presence” or “communication” of Beauty, greater because of the presence or communication of Size, and so on (100d-101b). The same account applies for cases of change: something becomes two, not by addition or subtraction, but by “participation” in duality (101c).
  
• This answer seems safe enough, but trivial. We need to be told more about “presence,” “communication,” or “participation.” Apparently Socrates is not yet ready to give a fuller account (100d).
  
• A sensible object “takes the name” of the Forms in which it participates (102a-b). For example, hot things are called hot because they participate in the Hot Itself. Notice this does not mean that sensible objects resemble the Forms—e.g., that hot things and the Hot Itself are hot in the same way. That is a further question.
  
• Having given his “safe and stupid” answer, Socrates next gives a more sophisticated description of how sensible objects relate to the Forms. It is that a thing can take on the property F, not only because of the presence of F, but also because of the presence of something that “brings” F. For example, fire brings heat; snow brings cold; three brings odd; fever brings sickness (103c-105c).
  
• Socrates also asserts that something that “brings” one of the Forms will never admit the opposite Form (105a). For example, fire does not admit cold; snow does not admit heat; three does not admit even; fever does not admit health.
• This last point is the key he needs to argue that the soul is immortal. The soul brings life in much the way that fire brings heat. The opposite of life is death. Since something that brings F can never admit the opposite of F, the soul never admits death, and it must be immortal (105e). QED!

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