Phaedo (Plato's Dialogues) (Bilingual Color Illustrations Edition)

Author: Plato / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Socrates said: "So, those who truly love wisdom, after this consideration, would all agree: 'We have found a shortcut that guides us and our arguments to this conclusion—that is, if we pursue truth, then while we have this body, the soul is mixed with this pile of bad things, and our desires can never be fulfilled. This body, just for the sake of nourishment, produces endless troubles. The body can also fall ill, which hinders us from seeking truth. Moreover, the body fills us with passion, desires, fears, all kinds of wild thoughts and ignorance, as they say, leaving us with no time for thinking. Conflict, factionalism, war—where do they all stem from? Aren't they all due to the body and the body's desires? To make money, we start wars; to indulge in bodily pleasures, we must make money. We have become slaves to such things. Therefore, we have no time to study philosophy. And what's worse. Even when we happen to have some time to study philosophy, the body disturbs our thoughts, obstructing us from seeing the truth. This all shows a principle: to seek the truth of anything, we must shed the body and rely solely on the soul to observe with its inner eye. So, this argument demonstrates that the wisdom we seek, the wisdom we claim to love, cannot be attained while we are alive; it can only be attained after death. Because if the soul and the body are combined, the soul cannot attain pure knowledge, then either we are fundamentally incapable of seeking pure knowledge, or we must wait until after death to do so. When a person dies, they must wait until death, when the soul is no longer tied to the body, to become a pure soul. We are still alive now, I think, the only way we can approach knowledge is to, unless absolutely necessary, avoid interaction with the body as much as possible, not be tainted by the body's desires, keep ourselves pure, and wait until heaven liberates us. Then, having escaped the body's folly and kept ourselves pure, we can be with the pure and experience all that is pure—perhaps, this is the way to attain truth. Because the impure cannot attain purity.' I think, Simmias, that those who truly love knowledge must think this way. Do you agree?" "Socrates, you are absolutely right." P32-33