Phaedo
When Socrates was saying his final goodbyes before his execution, his remaining family and friends were there to try and understand what he was looking to benefit by being an intellectual martyr and leaving his wife and child behind. Not to be too ambitious, Plato through Socrates was to begin an exploration of the fabric of existence. “We found Socrates recently released from his chains, and Xanthippe—you know her—sitting by him, holding their baby. When she saw us, she cried out and said the sort of thing that women usually say: ‘Socrates, this is the last time your friends will talk to you and you to them.’ Socrates looked at Crito. ‘Crito,’ he said, ‘let someone take her home.’ And some of Crito’s people led her away lamenting and beating her breast.”
The distain for the body was motivation for Socrates to let go of his mortal coil. Things that are impermanent leave a sting sooner or later when faced with death. The emotional clinging as well as physical pain was what he wanted to leave behind while he conversed with Simmias and Cebes. “Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed he said: ‘What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head. This seems to be happening to me. My bonds caused pain in my leg, and now pleasure seems to be following…Come then, he said, let me try to make my defence to you more convincing than it was to the jury. For, Simmias and Cebes, I should be wrong not to resent dying if I did not believe that I should go first to other wise and good gods, and then to men who have died and are better than men are here. Be assured that, as it is, I expect to join the company of good men. This last I would not altogether insist on, but if I insist on anything at all in these matters, it is that I shall come to gods who are very good masters. That is why I am not so resentful, because I have good hope that some future awaits men after death, as we have been told for years, a much better future for the good than for the wicked…I am afraid that other people do not realize that the one aim of those who practise philosophy in the proper manner is to practise for dying and death. Now if this is true, it would be strange indeed if they were eager for this all their lives and then resent it when what they have wanted and practised for a long time comes upon them.'”
Mindfulness [Dukkha]: https://rumble.com/v1gr1it-mindfulness-how-to-meditate-for-longer.-dukkha.html
Socrates then questioned the value of the body and the senses, as a way to elevate the soul and give a purpose for philosophy. Abstract thinking can counter the senses in that reason finds what is permanent in spite of the impermanence found in sensation. “Do you think it is the part of a philosopher to be concerned with such so-called pleasures as those of food and drink? What about the pleasures of sex? What of the other pleasures concerned with the service of the body? Do you think such a man prizes them greatly, the acquisition of distinguished clothes and shoes and the other bodily ornaments? Do you think he values these or despises them, except in so far as one cannot do without them? Do you not think that in general such a [philosopher’s] concern is not with the body but that, as far as he can, he turns away from the body towards the soul? So in the first place, such things show clearly that the philosopher more than other men frees the soul from association with the body as much as possible? Then what about the actual acquiring of knowledge? Is the body an obstacle when one associates it in the search for knowledge? I mean, for example, do men find any truth in sight or hearing, or are not even the poets forever telling us that we do not see or hear anything accurately, and surely if those two physical senses are not clear or precise, our other senses can hardly be accurate, as they are all inferior to these. Do you not think so? When then, does the soul grasp the truth? For whenever it attempts to examine anything with the body, it is clearly deceived by it…The soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.”
Contrary to pre-Socratics who focused on laws of the universe governing the celestial bodies, Socrates was more concerned about the fate of each generation in that it has to die at some point. This tether to the body connects for him to the soul via abstract thinking that should not be possible if everything was about the senses. “Is it not in reasoning if anywhere that any reality becomes clear to the soul? And it is then that the soul of the philosopher most disdains the body, flees from it and seeks to be by itself? Do we say that there is such a thing as the Just itself, or not? And the Beautiful, and the Good? And have you ever seen any of these things with your eyes? There is likely to be something such as a path to guide us out if our confusion because as long as we have a body and our soul is fused with such an evil we shall never adequately attain what we desire, which we affirm to be the truth. The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture. Moreover, if certain diseases befall it, they impede our search for the truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all this makes us too busy to practise philosophy. Worst of all, if we do get some respite from it and turn to some investigation, everywhere in our investigations the body is present and makes for confusion and fear, so that it prevents us from seeing the truth…Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with thought alone, without associating any sight with his thought, or dragging in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who, using pure thought alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself as far as possible from eyes and ears, and in a word, from the whole body, because the body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it.”
Plato’s version of Socrates introduced an intellectual form of meditation that required preparation for death as a means to clear the mind of confusion and focus on intellectual matters as completely as possible. Only in death could a new fusion with the laws of the universe and the intellect be complete without distraction, and Socrates inferred that there would be less agonizing at death, which painted part of the picture for what Socrates thought was the soul. The soul appeared to include attachments and habits to either the body or the intellect. “Either we can never attain knowledge or we can do so after death. Then and not before, the soul is by itself apart from the body. While we live, we shall be closest to knowledge if we refrain as much as possible from association with the body or join with it more than we must, if we are not infected with its nature but purify ourselves from it until the god himself frees us. In this way we shall escape the contamination of the body’s folly; we shall be likely to be in the company of people of the same kind, and by our own efforts we shall know all that is pure, which is presumably the truth, for it is not permitted to the impure to attain the pure…And if this is true, my friend, there is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life, so that the journey that is now ordered for me is full of good hope, as it is also for any other man who believes that his mind has been prepared and, as it were, purified…And does purification not turn out to be what we mentioned in our argument some time ago, namely, to separate the soul as far as possible from the body and accustom it to gather itself and collect itself out of every part of the body and to dwell by itself as far as it can both now and in the future, freed, as it were, from the bonds of the body?”
Greek tradition held that the afterlife would take place in the underworld controlled by Hades. The realm was split into three domains where the heroic and righteous were able to enter Elysium, described by Pindar as a place where “the good receive a life free from toil, not scraping with the strength of their arms the earth, nor the water of the sea, for the sake of a poor sustenance. But in the presence of the honored gods, those who gladly kept their oaths enjoy a life without tears…Where ocean breezes blow around the island of the blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys, whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner.”
Those who were not especially distinguished went to the Asphodel Meadows, located in Homer’s Odyssey, “[past] the waters of Okeanos and the Rock Leukas, they came to the Gates of the Sun and the District [dēmos] of Dreams, whereon they reached the Meadow of Asphodel where dwell the spirits and shadows of them that can labor no more.” There may have not been labor, but this place was “the dwelling of most of the shades in Hades. In spite of its romantic-sounding name, which has inspired poets to charming fancies, asphodel [Asphodelus ramosus] is, in fact, a singularlv unattractive weed. It was no doubt chosen bv the Greeks as appropriate to an Underworld existence because it is a ghostly gray and as incapable of giving pleasure as was the life of the shades…Most shades remained forever on the Plain of Asphodel, sometimes going through the motions of their former lives, but without pleasure or pain. So flavorless was this existence that the shade of Achilles declared to Odysseus that he would rather be a poor man’s slave than rule in Hades.”
The wicked went to the abyss of Tartarus where “an anvil would [have to] fall for nine days to reach it. The roots of earth and sea grew above it. Surrounded by a bronze fence with iron gates, Tartarus was the prison of Cronus and the other Titans who had warred with the gods. They were guarded there by the Hundred-handed. The vague figure who personified this sunless and terrible place.” Unique punishments were given to fit the crime for those who sinned against the Gods. “Many men, at the death of their lovers, wives or sons, were willing to go to the underworld, driven by the hope of seeing there those for whose company they longed, and being with them. Will then a true lover of wisdom, who has a similar hope and knows that he will never find it to any extent except in Hades, be resentful of dying and not gladly undertake the journey thither? One must surely think so, my friend, if he is a true philosopher, for he is firmly convinced that he will not find pure knowledge anywhere except there. And if this is so, then, as I said just now, would it not be highly unreasonable for such a man to fear death? Then you have sufficient indication, he said, that any man whom you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or of honours, either or both.”
Because desire was and is so common to human and animal life, the long view to understanding death was not common, let alone the possible judgement in the afterlife, and an attitude of moderation to change the outcome. “If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange. You know that they all consider death a great evil?” Because pleasure is manifold, renunciation of one pleasure could in fact be disguised by a new found pleasure, making it difficult to let go. “…They fear to be deprived of other pleasures which they desire, so they keep away from some pleasures because they are overcome by others. Now to be mastered by pleasure is what they call licence, but what happens to them is that they master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others.”
Socrates feared entering the wrong abode and the ancient Eleusinian rituals were symbolic for him for what may have been originally philosophical virtue. “…I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom. With this we have real courage and moderation and justice and, in a word, true virtue, with wisdom, whether pleasures and fears and all such things be present or absent. Exchanged for one another without wisdom such virtue is only an illusory appearance of virtue; it is in fact fit for slaves, without soundness or truth, whereas, in truth, moderation and courage and justice are a purging away of all such things, and wisdom itself is a kind of cleansing or purification. It is likely that those who established the mystic rites for us were not inferior persons but were speaking in riddles long ago when they said that whoever arrives in the underworld uninitiated and unsanctified will wallow in the mire, whereas he who arrives there purified and initiated will dwell with the gods. There are indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many who carry the thyrsus but the Bacchants are few. These latter are, in my opinion, no other than those who have practised philosophy in the right way. I have in my life left nothing undone in order to be counted among these as far as possible, as I have been eager to be in every way. Whether my eagerness was right and we accomplished anything we shall, I think, know for certain in a short time, god willing, on arriving yonder.”
Because Elysium would be more of a philosophical heaven for Socrates, the emotions would be the purist form. There would be joy in truth, like an a-ha moment, except it would be stable and never-ending. The love of the Good would replace earthly love. When talking to fellow heroes, it would be telepathic and require no learning, just validation of pure knowledge along with these ever stable positive emotions. A sense of fulfillment and tranquility [ataraxia] would be endless. All these notes would tone reliably at the same time and for all time. For the experience of man, Socrates’ listeners had their natural doubts. In life, the connection to the higher realm was through the finding of mathematical like theorems and perfect definitions that would maximize Good and weed out the Bad. “…Men find it very hard to believe what you said about the soul. They think that after it has left the body it no longer exists anywhere, but that it is destroyed and dissolved on the day the man dies, as soon as it leaves the body; and that, on leaving it, it is dispersed like breath or smoke, has flown away and gone and is no longer anything anywhere. If indeed it gathered itself together and existed by itself and escaped those evils you were recently enumerating, there would then be much good hope, Socrates, that what you say is true; but to believe this requires a good deal of faith and persuasive argument, to believe that the soul still exists after a man has died and that it still possesses some capability and intelligence.”
By using dualistic opposites, Socrates wanted to find the borderland between the mind and the body. With stories of Orpheus returning from the dead, and the belief in reincarnation, he bypassed the typical biological explanation, which only relates to carnality and the body, while the soul can still have access. “We recall an ancient theory that souls arriving there come from here, and then again that they arrive here and are born here from the dead. If that is true, that the living come back from the dead, then surely our souls must exist there, for they could not come back if they did not exist, and this is a sufficient proof that these things are so if it truly appears that the living never come from any other source than from the dead…If everything that partakes of life were to die and remain in that state and not come to life again, would not everything ultimately have to be dead and nothing alive? Even if the living came from some other source, and all that lived died, how could all things avoid being absorbed in death? Let us examine whether those that have an opposite must necessarily come to be from their opposite and from nowhere else, as for example when something comes to be larger it must necessarily become larger from having been smaller before…Between each of those pairs of opposites there are two processes: from the one to the other and then again from the other to the first; between the larger and the smaller there is increase and decrease, and we call the one increasing and the other decreasing? And so too there is separation and combination, cooling and heating, and all such things, even if sometimes we do not have a name for the process, but in fact it must be everywhere that they come to be from one another, and that there is a process of becoming from each into the other?”
The connection between the realm of the Forms and bodily experience comes from the potential humans have for understanding. Learning the laws of the universe, that were already there, is in the potential of humans at birth, so learning becomes a gradual remembering of that realm, and the fact that a human can think and have sensation means that there must be an intersection. Despite the hatred of sensation, bodily experiences helped Socrates with this learning, and this recollection mode kept pointing to The Forms via association and refinement. “…When a man sees or hears or in some other way perceives one thing and not only knows that thing but also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is not the same but different, are we not right to say that he recollects the second thing that comes into his mind? We say that there is something that is equal. I do not mean a stick equal to a stick or a stone to a stone, or anything of that kind, but something else beyond all these, the Equal itself. Shall we say that this exists or not? When the recollection is caused by similar things, must one not of necessity also experience this: to consider whether the similarity to that which one recollects is deficient in any respect or complete? Whence have we acquired the knowledge of it? Is it not from the things we mentioned just now, from seeing sticks or stones or some other things that are equal we come to think of that other which is different from them? Or doesn’t it seem to you to be different? Look at it also this way: do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one person to be equal and to another to be unequal? But what of the equals themselves? Have they ever appeared unequal to you, or Equality to be Inequality?”
Abstract Equality is perfect and so the life of the philosopher is to recognize perfect knowledge, of equality for example, while still perceiving inequality. Perception is limited so being Good or making objects Good can be Good enough until death unites the soul with the abstract Elysium. “Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants to be like some other reality but falls short and cannot be like that other since it is inferior, do we agree that the one who thinks this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so? We must then possess knowledge of the Equal before that time when we first saw the equal objects and realized that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this. Our sense perceptions must surely make us realize that all that we perceive through them is striving to reach that which is Equal but falls short of it.”
Still the body dies, at the horror of survivors, but Socrates goes back to the permanence of knowledge compared to the impermanence found in sensation. “…Can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each thing in itself, the real, ever be affected by any change whatever? Or does each of them that really is, being simple by itself, remain the same and never in any way tolerate any change whatever? These [objects] you could touch and see and perceive with the other senses, but those that always remain the same can only be grasped by the reasoning power of the mind? They are not seen but are invisible? So the soul is more like the invisible than the body, and the body more like the visible?” The soul for Plato through Socrates had a lifeforce in that it can direct the body via knowledge. Knowledge motivates the body. “But when the soul investigates by itself it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in the same state as it is in touch with things of the same kind, and its experience then is what is called wisdom? When the soul and the body are together, nature orders the one to be subject and to be ruled, and the other to rule and be master. Then again, which do you think is like the divine and which like the mortal? Do you not think that the nature of the divine is to rule and to lead, whereas it is that of the mortal to be ruled and be subject?”
Yet souls can purify and be free at death or be confused by the nature of matter and want to hang around. Clarification through wisdom affects the soul’s intentionality and ignorance pollutes, therefore the soul can develop bad habits and become a ghostly ignorance wandering the Earth, even to the point of being ignorant of the realm of Hades. “…If it is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, as it had no willing association with the body in life, but avoided it and gathered itself together by itself and always practised this, which is no other than practising philosophy in the right way, in fact, training to die easily…A soul in this state makes its way to the invisible, which is like itself, the divine and immortal and wise, and arriving there it can be happy, having rid itself of confusion, ignorance, fear, violent desires and the other human ills and, as is said of the initiates, truly spend the rest of time with the gods…But I think that if the soul is polluted and impure when it leaves the body, having always been associated with it and served it, bewitched by physical desires and pleasures to the point at which nothing seems to exist for it but the physical, which one can touch and see or eat and drink or make use of for sexual enjoyment, and if that soul is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid that which is dim and invisible to the eyes but intelligible and to be grasped by philosophy—do you think such a soul will escape pure and by itself? It is no doubt permeated by the physical, which constant intercourse and association with the body, as well as considerable practice, has caused to become ingrained in it? We must believe, my friend, that this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthy and visible. Through it, such a soul has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades. It wanders, as we are told, around graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen.”
The ignorance would lead to those negative emotions making ghosts more or less unfriendly under Socrates’ formulation, depending on the depth of their ignorance, with extreme types full of envy with the evil eye trying to detect people or animals who are alive and enjoying evil pleasures, even to the point of reincarnation through addiction to corporeal life. “…These are not the souls of good but of inferior men, which are forced to wander there, paying the penalty for their previous bad upbringing. They wander until their longing for that which accompanies them, the physical, again imprisons them in a body, and they are then, as is likely, bound to such characters as they have practised in their life…Those, for example, who have carelessly practised gluttony, violence and drunkenness are likely to join a company of donkeys or of similar animals. Do you not think so? Those who have esteemed injustice highly, and tyranny and plunder will join the tribes of wolves and hawks and kites, or where else shall we say that they go? The happiest of these, who will also have the best destination, are those who have practised popular and social virtue, which they call moderation and justice and which was developed by habit and practice, without philosophy or understanding? It is likely that they will again join a social and gentle group, either of bees or wasps or ants, and then again the same kind of human group, and so be moderate men…Because every pleasure and every pain provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the soul to the body and to weld them together. It makes the soul corporeal, so that it believes that truth is what the body says it is. As it shares the beliefs and delights of the body, I think it inevitably comes to share its ways and manner of life and is unable ever to reach Hades in a pure state; it is always full of body when it departs, so that it soon falls back into another body and grows with it as if it had been sewn into it. Because of this, it can have no part in the company of the divine, the pure and uniform.”
The faith increases because consciousness is able to detect examples of permanent definitions and unchanging laws, ethics, or mathematics, which are invisible, except to the mind’s eye or logical imagination, and because they are indestructible, death of the changing body cannot annihilate the Truth, just like conscious aging before death, or entropy detected by the senses anywhere, could not change the mind’s eye of those laws. “The soul of the philosopher achieves a calm from such emotions; it follows reason and ever stays with it contemplating the true, the divine, which is not the object of opinion. Nurtured by this, it believes that one should live in this manner as long as one is alive and, after death, arrive at what is akin and of the same kind, and escape from human evils. After such nurture there is no danger, Simmias and Cebes, that one should fear that, on parting from the body, the soul would be scattered and dissipated by the winds and no longer be anything anywhere.”
Once Socrates detected in perception, something beautiful for example, he didn’t want to dwell in the details too long but instead move to the intellect immediately. “I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright colour or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons—for all these confuse me—but I simply, naïvely and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else. And if I stick to this I think I shall never fall into error. This is the safe answer for me or anyone else to give, namely, that it is through Beauty that beautiful things are made beautiful.”
There is confusion in that the soul is directing matter, yet it needs to cling to what it already is, which is perfect unity with the Perfect, but unfortunately this takes elements of bodily craving behavior looking for eternal satisfaction, and moves it from the body to the invisible Forms. The soul is still separate but conjoined with The Forms, or some bad reincarnation, or with shades in lower levels of the underworld. It’s still dualistic in that the soul can have different ends, and be emotional in the positive Good sense. Many people will still take all those things as something residing in the body. For Plato, as long as emotions have a purity and Goodness to them, they are part of logic and can partake in the Platonic Elysium, and trust that how compartmentalized this soul is from the body is because “an opposite will never be its own opposite.”
“Answer me then, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living? — A soul.”
“And is that always so? — Of course.”
“Whatever the soul occupies, it always brings life to it?— It does.”
“Is there, or is there not, an opposite to life? — There is.”
“What is it? — Death.”
“Now the soul does not admit death? — No.”
“So the soul is deathless? — It is.”
Morality for Socrates came from the belief in an afterlife. Without that belief, it’s not expected that people will adjust their behavior of fighting over scarce objects that are impermanent and therefore futile. “If death were escape from everything, it would be a great boon to the wicked to get rid of the body and of their wickedness together with their soul. But now that the soul appears to be immortal, there is no escape from evil or salvation for it except by becoming as good and wise as possible, for the soul goes to the underworld possessing nothing but its education and upbringing, which are said to bring the greatest benefit or harm to the dead right at the beginning of the journey yonder.”
Socrates decided to go to this Elysium in actuality, and provided the ultimate food for thought for his followers. “‘One must, utter a prayer to the gods that the journey from here to yonder may be fortunate. This is my prayer and may it be so.’ And while he was saying this, he was holding the cup, and then drained it calmly and easily. Most of us had been able to hold back our tears reasonably well up till then, but when we saw him drinking it and after he drank it, we could hold them back no longer; my own tears came in floods against my will. So I covered my face. I was weeping for myself, not for him—for my misfortune in being deprived of such a comrade. Even before me, Crito was unable to restrain his tears and got up. Apollodorus had not ceased from weeping before, and at this moment his noisy tears and anger made everybody present break down, except Socrates. ‘What is this,’ he said, ‘you strange fellows. It is mainly for this reason that I sent the women away, to avoid such unseemliness, for I am told one should die in good omened silence. So keep quiet and control yourselves.’ His words made us ashamed, and we checked our tears. He walked around, and when he said his legs were heavy he lay on his back as he had been told to do, and the man who had given him the poison touched his body, and after a while tested his feet and legs, pressed hard upon his foot and asked him if he felt this, and Socrates said no. Then he pressed his calves, and made his way up his body and showed us that it was cold and stiff. He felt it himself and said that when the cold reached his heart he would be gone. As his belly was getting cold Socrates uncovered his head—he had covered it—and said—these were his last words—’Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget.’—’It shall be done,’ said Crito ‘tell us if there is anything else,’ but there was no answer. Shortly afterwards Socrates made a movement; the man uncovered him and his eyes were fixed. Seeing this Crito closed his mouth and his eyes…” Typically a cock was sacrificed to Asclepius by the sick people who slept in his temples, hoping for a cure. Socrates obviously meant that death was a cure for the ills of life.
Socrates’ followers would be stuck in sensation and have to learn their way to recollection by using perception like a compass. If one cannot conceive of the perfect concept for something, then they would have to follow continuous improvement by imagining what is better than now and becoming aligned with an eternal pattern of improvement, through trial and error gradually, and then completely at death. In relationships with others hell would be an attitude of wanting to consume and accumulate what is good without improving anything in return. You naturally would be tempted to steal and murder to be able to sustain consumption for long periods of time. To want to improve things, however imperfect our endeavors, led to the realm of the ultimate good. The salvation is realizing that there’s only two intentions: for improvement or destruction.
A philosopher’s life would be that of maximizing heaven on earth, like enjoying a freeing, glowing, meditative intellectual Samadhi, but instead of relying on a shiny happiness and elation in the act of repeated discoveries, which are still transitory, successive material improvements and inventions coming from these insights would push the world technologically towards appreciation of the Good, which was the initial direction towards salvation. Even if a person made the mistake of chasing peak experiences, like basking in a golden light like a cat in a sunbeam, with a tasty alcoholic beverage, leading to the appreciation of shapes and colors of existence, it pointed to the danger of immoderation in withdrawal symptoms and the inevitable pain of loss, as Socrates criticized the son of Anytus in Apology, by clinging to what was ultimately impermanent and not providing a contribution for society. Those dissatisfactions had the potential of making people feel something was missing and look elsewhere. Socrates wanted something resembling an indestructible “good cheer,” devoid of boredom, but mundane forms of pleasure were at least pointing to an intellectual delight more satisfying: a keeping of the baby while throwing out the bathwater, so to say. “I only want the heaven. You can keep the hell.”
Plato: Apology: https://rumble.com/v6tvdm3-plato-apology.html
Further elucidation of Plato’s belief in the reality of these Forms of salvation, including a description of an early near death experience, would have to wait for Plato’s Myth of Er in The Republic.
Plato – Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo – G. M. Grube: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780915145225/
Plato’s Phaedo – David Bostock: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780198249184/
The Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth – Ronna Burger: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781587316708/
Mourning Socrates: Plato’s Phaedo and Tragic Philosophy – Rana Saadi Liebert Classical Philology 2020 115:3, 442-466
Crowell’s handbook of classical mythology – Edward Tripp: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780690226089/
The Odyssey – Homer: https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/homeric-odyssey-sb/#24t
The Odyssey – Homer (punishments): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136%3Abook%3D11%3Acard%3D567
Pawłowski, K. (2021). Socrates “Swan Song’ in Plato’s Phaedo. Socrates’ “Secret Doctrine” about Death and Eternity. Schole, 15, Article 2
Philosophy: https://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/