{"id":2170,"date":"2019-10-04T17:56:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T15:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/?p=2170"},"modified":"2024-07-28T11:36:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-28T09:36:58","slug":"socrates-and-the-second-sailing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/socrates-and-the-second-sailing\/","title":{"rendered":"Socrates and the Second Sailing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Phaedo<\/em>, perhaps more than any other platonic dialogue, deals with philosophy as a preparation for the afterlife. The dramatization of Socrates\u2019 death is used as narrative device to discuss the immortality of soul and to set out the theory of Forms (as Adamson rightly noted, this is the first dialogue to set out the well-known doctrine)[1]<\/a>. Without the theory of Forms, in fact, most of arguments in favor of the immortality of soul would be undermined (\u201creminiscence argument\u201d and \u201caffinity argument\u201d)[2]<\/a> and the soul would lose his \u201cexternal\u201d cause.<\/p>\n

Socrates against Pre-Socratic materialism<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The passages between 96a and 100b are crucial to understand why the theory of Forms is introduced, its relations to the soul and the \u201csecond sailing\u201d as a sort of new \u201cmethod\u201d in reaction to the Pre-Socratic \u201cmaterialism\u201d.<\/p>\n

First of all, Socrates claim that when he was young he was \u201ceager of investigating the nature\u201d (Ph\u00e6do 96a). Here \u201c\u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2\u201d must be understood as \u201cphysical world\u201d of natural phenomena. And the kind of investigations Socrates is referring to as typical of what we call \u201cPre-Socratic\u201d natural philosophers. This passage is pretty significant from the point of view of the different biographical accounts we have of Socrates: the way Plato is representing Socrates here, in fact, sounds almost as a confession of Socrates himself who admits to have (paradoxically) been a \u201cpre-Socratic\u201d philosopher in his youth, probably a meteorologist with \u201cthe head in the clouds\u201d, as Aristophanes depicted him in Clouds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, after a couple of lines, Socrates does express repentance for what he was and he believed in. He also expresses his disappointment for the pre-Socratic\u2019s \u201cmethod\u201d of direct observation of nature and for Anaxagoras\u2019 belief that our \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 (mind) arrange and cause all things:<\/p>\n

My glorious hope was quickly snatched away from me. [Anaxagoras, in fact] did not assign any real causes for the ordering of things but mentioned as causes air and either and water (<\/em>Ph\u00e6do 98c)<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To consider \u201cair\u201d and \u201ceither\u201d and \u201cwater\u201d as real causes is for the Platonic Socrates as to say that the cause of Socrates sitting somewhere is his \u201cbones and sinews\u201d (Ph\u00e6do 98c). This view, according to Socrates, does not allow \u201cthe power which causes things to be placed as it is best for them to be placed\u201d (Ph\u00e6do 99c). In other words, it does not allow us to really grasp reality, but just \u201cshadows\u201d of it: \u201c[the pre-Socratics] give no thought to the good, which must embrace and hold together all things\u201d (Ph\u00e6do 99c). Therefore, in order to avoid such a big mistake, the \u201cfirst sailing\u201d must be abandoned and a new way must be taken: Socrates\u2019 second sailing (or \u201cvoyage\u201d) is presented as the only alternative to access the truth that is to say that the truth consists of the knowledge of the Forms and that only the Forms (immaterial, external and eternal) can \u201ccause\u201d things in physical world.<\/p>\n

\"hqdefault-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The second sailing <\/strong><\/p>\n

Socrates is aware that approaching the truth through senses, as those who believe air and water to be the real causes of things seem to do, is misleading: in return we will get only \u201cshadows\u201d of reality and this is because our senses are unable to face reality as well as our soul would be blind if we tried to look at the sun directly with our eyes (Ph\u00e6do 99d-99e). The explanatory purpose of this metaphor is not only to reject empiricism and to strike the inadequacy of our senses for knowledge, but also, perhaps more importantly, to stress the fact that rejecting \u201csensitive knowledge\u201d is not enough as it is suggested that the soul itself needs to undergo different stages to might be able one day to face the sun (which in Plato usually stands for the Form of Good). Therefore, Socrates seems to come to a startling conclusion: there is no \u201cshortcut\u201d to knowledge. Philosophy (\u201cauthentic\u201d philosophy as opposed to \u201csuperficial\u201d observation of the physical world) is not an easy task, but rather a voyage that must begin with the study of reality by means of \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 (100a). Since the real philosopher is aware of the impossibility of facing truth directly, she does \u201ctake refuge\u201d in the \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 (\u201cwords\u201d). How did Socrates come to this conclusion? Through a hypothetical method consisting of a) assuming something and b) deducing consequences. What is assumed by Socrates is the reality of Forms:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. a) \u201cMy point of departure [is] that there are such things as absolute beauty and good and greatness and the like\u201d (100b).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    It follows that:<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. b) \u201cif anything is beautiful besides absolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of absolute beauty\u201d (100b).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Because of the introduction of Forms not only knowledge can be explained, but also causation. In this respect the theory of Forms is both an epistemological and a metaphysical theory: the immortality of soul is granted as a necessary consequence of the immortality and eternity of the \u201cForm of soul\u201d which \u201ccauses\u201d our soul to be what it is.<\/p>\n

      It should be noted, however, that Socrates does not assure Cebes that the \u201csecond sailing\u201d is necessarily more successful than the method of those who look at the facts of daily life and this is probably a typical Socratic touch: he does not want to reduce the second sailing to a dogmatic doctrine.<\/p>\n

      [1]<\/a> Adamson, Peter (2014). Classical Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps<\/em>, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 137.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> Ibid., p. 138.<\/p>\n

      Matteo Iammarrone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Introduction Phaedo, perhaps more than any other platonic dialogue, deals with philosophy as a preparation for the afterlife. The dramatization of Socrates\u2019 death is used as narrative device to discuss the immortality of soul and to set out the theory of Forms (as Adamson rightly noted, this is the first dialogue to set out the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1285,42,1286],"tags":[1189,1190,1191,1188],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analytisk","category-filosofiochidehistoria","category-kontinental","tag-phaedo","tag-plato","tag-second-sailing","tag-socrates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.matteoiammarrone.com\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}