Plato's character Phaedo of Elis, having been present at Socrates' deathbed relates the dialogue from that day to Echecrates, a fellow philosopher. By engaging in dialectic with a group of Socrates' friends, including the Thebans Cebes and Simmias, Socrates explores various arguments for the soul's immortality in order to show that there is an afterlife in which the soul will dwell following death. Phaedo tells the story that following the discussion; he and the others were there to witness the death of Socrates.
One of the main themes in the Phaedo is the idea that the soul is immortal. Socrates offers four arguments for the soul's immortality:
1) The Cyclical Argument, or Opposites Argument explains that Forms are eternal and unchanging, and as the soul always brings life, then it must not die, and is necessarily "imperishable". As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul must be its indestructible opposite. Plato then suggests the analogy of fire and cold. If the form of cold is imperishable, and fire, its opposite, was within close proximity, it would have to withdraw intact as does the soul during death. This could be likened to the idea of the opposite charges of magnets. (How the fuck do do they work?)
2) The Theory of Recollection explains that we possess some non-empirical knowledge (e.g. The Form of Equality) at birth, implying the soul existed before birth to carry that knowledge.
3) The Affinity Argument, (Cartesian dualism) explains that invisible, immortal, and incorporeal things are different from visible, mortal, and corporeal things. Our soul is of the former, while our body is of the latter, so when our bodies die and decay, our soul will continue to live.
4) The Argument from Form of Life, or The Final Argument explains that the Forms, incorporeal and static entities, are the cause of all things in the world, and all things participate in Forms. The soul, by its very nature, participates in the Form of Life, which means the soul can never die.
Socrates thus concludes, "Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world. "Once dead, man's soul will go to Hades and be in the company of," as Socrates says, "...men departed, better than those whom I leave behind." For he will dwell amongst those who were true philosophers, like he.
We have as much proof in the immortality of the soul as we do in the belief that we are not dreaming. If one states that they are not dreaming, they are no more vindicated than a believer in an immortal soul. Socrates is right in his claims that he will join great company after his death, but only as right as the statement I am not dreaming right now. There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream.
(Allow our choir twenty seconds to get in position)
We gather once more, consecrating these halls through hallowed thought.
Ours, dear fellows, is a season of rain. One left unblessed, unanointed by the ease of sunlight-- left dark without the guiding day of truth. Could we recognize it, the shining truth? Or much less blink past its brilliance, were it to descend into our midst? Alas fellows, I fear we could not. Alas for much more.
A grand opportunity, the like of which our times shall never see again, has slipped through the fingers of our nation. One left unrealized, whose unbirth shall bear more conflict and years without variation, and years of pain.
This lost opportunity, born too late and of empty means, must be remembered as the hinging moment of what could have been. Do not forget, dear fellows-- the predicates for mercy were contained in us, and together our collective malice favored the appetites of vengeance.
Before sharing the laments of what can no longer be, ponder this story of folk legend. When my father was a child he lived in a small factory town, prosperous mills made textiles and shoes along the shore of the Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. Local legend once claimed the natives of centuries before waged war over its waters. The conflict was long, bitter and bloody-- it seemed without end. A day finally came, and the chiefs of each tribe met at the lake's center. Their claims irreconcilable, their people fervent in war-lust-- they made the only treaty possible. Wearily parting, the chiefs christened the lake's waters Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg-- following the terms of their agreement, "You fish on your side, We fish on our side, and no one fishes in the middle."
Peace requires, it would seem, sacrifice. Passions may settle back within their river banks, but the rocky barbs of loss and remembered hatred never leave the flood plain. As a Confederate private once said to a Union officer who extended him bread, "You're charity is received, but ask for no thanks. For sir, I hate you."
Sitting in the midst of these rains, the tragedy cuts me. We bask in the vanity of our advancements in technology, in open sourced knowledge, in the grand schemes of sating the thirsts of our world's poor. All these steps are noble in themselves, the context of their birth however is unforgivable. Whilst TED lecturers congratulate themselves in California: Fallujah sinks in the rubble of depleted uranium, Afghanistan and Iraq bomb themselves as their police and military kill and imprison their own people, a Task Force of nations bombards African cities-- our nations chose with astute politic, those cries for liberty they deem amenable to answer. These ingenious ideas for peace are thought in the parlor rooms of war. What humanitarian answers the human cry for relief with bombs?
Until we build in peace we have built nothing, until we act from peace we have achieved nothing.
Among the tin of drums sounding endless war, to this tune our finest opportunity has passed us. As God before, we followed and committed his same unending mistake-- casting out our Lucifer.
Nowhere shall my call find ear, nor will you have heard its like-- for no one speaks these words, their echo will swiftly dull. I speak them anyway, as a man who aspires for more than this mere world.
If my prayer is heard, let the announcement of last week be re-lived:
"My fellow Americans. I, President Barrack Obama, do sincerely and completely pardon the man Osama Bin Laden of his crimes against humanity. I do this not for his sake, but for that of us all. It is upon deep reflection and council that I must extend to him, my enemy, a shared and common humanity. Many shall never forgive and that is their due, but as your leader-- as any leader, I must forgive his supremely human crimes and so too must our government. Neither god nor creed might have weighed my decision, for ours is a human affair and it must be dealt as such. In vengeance we become our foe, so through mercy let us elevate ourselves and our society.
Until we reconcile the ugliness of our fellow man unto its beauty, war shall reign. Violence and ignorance will burn this earth, selfishness and callousness shall suffocate the air, vanity and delusion will bleed man's veins of its every drop until the soil itself rises, bloated. Let him live, that so too may we.
This chance to enact a momentous mercy, let it begin the long confrontation with all the violence and hatreds we clutch unto throughout our brief lives. Mr. Bin Laden shall be returned unto his own people: let them, their government and his god do with him as they please. The United States of America will no longer cower beneath a blanket of fear, in an unending maze of violence. Tonight, we have drawn the line against our enemies and challenged them: are they as innocent and righteous as they claim? Through this act, we are."
My dear fellows, I beg you to take silence on these rainy days and reflect: Are we so innocent? Are we so righteous? If not, how so blinded can we presume to teach others further lessons in blindness?
If not mercy, what breaks this repetitive, tragic and mundane violence of our world? More violence, through Assassination or Genocide?
Sit in silence, or listen to these boys of our choir-- sit in misery before a god composed of all our wretchedness.
