Soul & Body (08 December 2023; Plato/Socrates/Descartes)

In this essay, I will offer an account of the relation between soul and the human body as presented through Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo. First, I’ll explain what’s happening in Phaedo, describing how Socrates sets up his discourse defending the assertion that a philosopher should welcome death. Then, I’ll discuss how Plato thinks philosophers should relate to their bodies, in light of the true aim of philosophy. Next, I’ll juxtapose Plato’s proposed relationship between soul and body with Descartes’ mind and body dualism. I’ll conclude by offering my view that Socrates’ portrait of the body doesn’t grant it the philosophical weight it deserves.

Plato’s Phaedo gives the alleged account of Socrates’ final hours, recounted to Echecrates by Phaedo. During this time, Socrates appeared happy “in both his manner and his words” (Phaedo 58E) to his companions, despite the fact that his death was encroaching upon him. He happily greets them upon their arrival at the prison, where they question his motivation for the poetry he’s writing. Socrates says that he had to “test what certain dreams of mine might be saying… to acquit myself of any impiety, just in case they might be repeatedly commanding me to make this music” (Phaedo 60E). He explains that he’s had recurring dreams throughout his life that demand he make music, assuming that these dreams must be fulfilled for pious sake. In his past life, he assumed that the “music” he was to produce could be done through the “greatest music,” philosophy; but, just in case that was not correct, as he knows his life is coming to an end, he began to write poetry to clear up any potential impiety. Then, perplexing his companions, he claims that his fellow philosophers should “follow [him] as quickly as possible” (Phaedo 61C), referring to death.

Socrates clarifies that he’s not advocating for suicide, as that could upset the gods (62C), but death is something to be welcomed by philosophers with open arms when the gods see fit. Cebes doesn't see it; he believes that someone who is the possession of a god (as Socrates claims) should make a fuss at death, and those who are mindless should rejoice death (Phaedo 62D-E). With this, Socrates begins his defense of welcoming death as a philosopher; not only because he’ll be able to surround himself with his betters, the gods (Phaedo 63C), but because of the inherent relation between body and soul.

In his defense, Socrates first asserts that the primary aim of a true philosopher is to “devote themselves to nothing else but dying and being dead” (Phaedo 64A). Should a philosopher devote themselves to this only to find themselves in disquietude near to their body’s end, they have failed as a philosopher. The reason true philosophers are “ripe for death” begins with Socrates’ definition of death: “the freeing of the soul from the body” (Phaedo 64C). The soul’s departure from the body is not merely a relation of separation, but rather a relation of “freeing” as Socrates puts it, which frames the rest of his argument, that the body keeps the philosopher’s soul captive. 

The body’s pleasures, such as food, drink, and lovemaking, have nothing to do with being a philosopher; no “servicings of the body” can aid a philosopher in what he seeks (Phaedo 64D-64E), and the philosopher must stand “apart from [the body] and [keep] turned toward the soul as much as he can” (Phaedo 64E). In death and separation from the body, the philosopher’s soul is freed from all that is concerned with some other aim (the bodily pleasures). Socrates stakes the claim that the philosopher is more capable of releasing the soul from the body, even while alive, than others in this “turning toward” the soul (Phaedo 65A); in doing so, the philosopher is better equipped to attain thoughtfulness. The body’s senses, such as seeing and hearing, are deemed imprecise, and cannot reveal any truth of Things (Phaedo 65B) (Phaedo 65D-66A). If the philosopher is ever to reveal any truth, they must not rely upon the senses or anything that goes alongside the body, but instead use reasoning, a faculty of the soul; he who does so “will hit upon what is” (Phaedo 66A). 

The soul can reason best when none of the demands of the body are placed upon her: when she’s free from pain, pleasure, and bodily desire, “she strives for what is” (Phaedo 65C). There is then a dualism in the dichotomy between soul and body. The philosopher, who from the Republic we know to be the most virtuous, may only become a good philosopher if they turn away from the body’s services and look toward the soul instead. Thus, in enabling philosophy, the soul is more beautiful than the body, which hinders it. Additionally, “others” who are not philosophers (and thus less virtuous) are ruled by their body rather than their soul, and are responsible for the tragic outcomes of the body's desires (war/battles/greed) (Phaedo 66C).

Thus, while the philosopher should not readily commit suicide to escape the body, there should be no reason for the true philosopher to fret about death when it is his time. The philosopher cares not for the body and its required services, but only for the soul. The attachment of the two is compared with a “sort of evil” that will prohibit the philosopher from discovering what he truly seeks so long as the two remain tethered (Phaedo 66B). Diseases of the body, the leisures it requires (food), and the loves and terrors it seeks and avoids contribute nothing towards the seeking of what truly is, and can only hinder it (Phaedo 66C). So, we must “free ourselves from the body and behold things themselves with the soul herself” (Phaedo 66E). Those who have met their end will attain true knowledge, and in our time alive, we can come closest to knowing by ignoring all but the absolute necessities the body requires, in preparation for our time in death where we will come to know things in themselves, having left the body behind (Phaedo 67A).

Socrates then summarizes his defense; he has “great hope that when I arrive at the end of my journey, There – if indeed anywhere – I shall sufficiently attain what our constant business in our bygone life has been for” (Phaedo 67B-67C). He posits that his soul will persist alone by herself once released from the prison of the body (Phaedo 67C), enabling him to find what he seeks, and thus to answer Cebes’ inquiry, he, nor any philosopher, should not fear death but rather welcome it with open arms. 

The issues associated with the attachment of soul and body presented in the Phaedo are reminiscent of the mind and body dualism presented in Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy. Descartes, seeking some axiom of true knowledge from which all other knowledge can be based, posits “I am thinking, therefore I exist” (Principles 7). From this revelation, Descartes posits that he is necessarily a thinking thing to which a corporeal body is attached. He can doubt his senses and the corporeal world outside of him since indeed his senses have been wrong before. Because he dreams, his corporeal body is not necessary for the cognition and thought the mind experiences. If anything, true knowledge for Descartes cannot be based upon the senses, even though they are revealed to him by a benevolent god, because he is imperfect. Both he and Socrates see the mind/soul as superior to body, reigning over it as the source of true(r) knowledge. Socrates presents a similar argument, that the corporeal body only hinders the progress of philosophy, only in a more merciless manner. 

Descartes did at least arrive at some certain knowledge of what is; that he is indeed a thinking thing, alongside several subsets of knowledge based upon this principle. Socrates never posits that he can know anything and claims that he cannot know any truths so long as he is attached to his body, but the same notion is implied. The soul which reasons, and discovers things in and of themselves on their own, can operate independently from the body (as it continues to reason once the body has perished). Thus, he has at least established that the true essence of man is to be a soul, which can also be understood as that which reasons, and by extension, a thinking thing.

Socrates construes the body’s relation to soul in Phaedo as a captor-captive relation. The dualism that emerges places the soul as more beautiful than the body which keeps it from finding true knowledge in the corporeal world, disturbed by the body’s unending desires, pains, and pleasures. He welcomes his impending death, a welcoming which he claims all true philosophers should share; the body which has impeded their quest for truth their entire life, whose needs they’ve ignored to instead turn to the soul, releases the soul upon death. The philosopher can then receive what they’ve truly wished for, things in and of themselves, or rather what truly is. His dualistic account of the two has been reinforced in time, particularly by Descartes’ work, which construes the mind and body relation in a similar way. 

Descartes and Socrates both believe that the body obscures the soul/mind’s quest for true knowledge, as its perceptions not only fail to reveal the true nature of things but can also confuse the mind/soul. Additionally, they believe that the soul/mind can exist without a functioning and perceiving corporeal body; for Socrates, this is the ideal state. I believe Socrates’ view of the body as a hindrance to true philosophy undermines the importance of the body in philosophical cognition. Knowledge, learned through recollection as claimed in the Meno, must begin at some point. To me, this means all knowledge must be a posteriori, and cannot be derived without the senses of the body a priori. Instead of acknowledging the use of the sensory inputs from the body in philosophical cognition, Socrates places his faith in the thing he does seem to know for certain, the immortality of the soul (which he attempts to prove in four separate proofs that are logically invalid). While we may never be able to see things in and of themselves with our senses, and only get close with the use of reason, we cannot expect that in death the loss of our corporeal body will grant us the knowledge of things in themselves.

Works Cited

Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Cambridge University Press, 1985. 

Plato, et al. Phaedo. Focus Publishing/r Pullins & C, 1998.