[ μόλις ξεμπερδεψω με τις απανωτές αναγνώσεις του για τη σχολή, θα σας δώσω και την άποψη μου ]

I think it was Bergson who said something about every man having a deep, philosophical intuition which guides what they hold to be True. A sudden click, perhaps.

Plato, and his sublime Theory of Forms, is precisely that for me. Looking at the world, perceiving phenomena leads me inexorably to positing Ideas/Forms just like Plato did. The solution is coherent, elegant and quite beautiful too. Or who would dare say mathematical objects exist only in our imagination? Is physics being perfectly described with our "arbitrary" math a coincidence? Tremendous coincidence if it's the case.

I can only wish I had gotten education in Platonism as a child, it would have probably saved me from the dreadful atheist teenager shtick.

كان الكتاب يقبع في نهاية مكتبتي منذ سنه او اكثر، اريد قراءته لكني كنت أخاف ان اقرأ لأفلاطون فلا أفهم من كلامه شيء، هناك هالة مخيفه من القداسه حول هذا الرجل وكتاباته كونه من اوائل الفلاسفه في التاريخ والأكثر شيوعا بينهم، لكني تشجعت وقرأته اليوم ويا اللهي ما هذا العقل الجميل والجبار الذي ابدع هذا ؟
لا أكاد أصدق أن الناس ومنذ ذلك الوقت المبكر من التاريخ قد اعاروا هذي المواضيع اهميه كبرى ووقت وجهد لفهمها هذا الفهم والنقاش حولها ، الحديث حول خلود النفس لا ينتهي لكن عجبي ان فهمه اناس لم يروا نبي مرسل يشرح لهم هذه الأمور بل استدلوا عليها بالفلسفة والمنطق مثلا نظرية الاستذكار التي شرحها أفلاطون على لسان معلمه سقراط بطريقة ساحرة ومقنعة جداً نجد صدى لها في القرآن بقوله تعالى : وَإِذْ أَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِن بَنِي آدَمَ مِن ظُهُورِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَأَشْهَدَهُمْ عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ ۖ قَالُوا بَلَىٰ ۛ شَهِدْنَا ۛ أَن تَقُولُوا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّا كُنَّا عَنْ هَٰذَا غَافِلِينَ
وكلام آخر وحجج رائعة، افكار أخرى دعت إليها الديانات السماوية لا يخلو حديث أفلاطون منها
حقيقة كتاب مدهش وأود ان اعترف بأني اغبط كل من درس الفلسفة دراسة أكاديمية، انتم محظوظون يا أصدقاء :)

8,5/10
"Fedon" to zapis ostatniej rozmowy Sokratesa z uczniami, tuż przed wypiciem cykuty. Platon doskonale oddaje ponury i refleksyjny nastrój tego spotkania, świetnie też charakteryzuje postaci i naśladuje mowę potoczną. Rozmowa jest naprawdę ciepła, przyjacielska. Wszyscy uczniowe zdają się chcieć zapomnieć, co czeka ich mistrza. Zaskoczył mnie fakt podwójnej narracji, bowiem dialog toczy się faktycznie pomiędzy Fedonem a Echekratesem - pierwszy opowiada drugiemu okoliczności śmierci Sokratesa. Taki zabieg narracyjny już w IV w. p.n.e.!

Sama wartość filozoficzna, poza literacką, również jest wspaniała. Sokrates, za pomocą czystego rozumowania i swojej słynnej techniki zbijania czyichś przekonań, udowadnia istnienie i długowieczność duszy. Rozróżnia również przy tym to, co jest cielesne, a co duchowe, a więc jakie dusze będą żyć wiecznie wśród bogów, a które będą odbywać karę lub wiecznie się reinkarnować. Dużo z tego to poglądy, które przejął Platon i uznał za podstawę swojego systemu filozoficznego. Sokrates w pięknych metaforach opowiada także o fizycznej budowie świata - choć obraz nieprawdziwy, to jednak ciekawie oddaje sposób myślenia ludzi starożytnych.

Rozmowa kończy się wzruszającym i dobitnym opisem śmierci Sokratesa, co utwierdziło mnie w przekonaniu o literacko-filozoficznym geniuszu Platona.

Socrates is a dick. He likes to hear himself talk even more than I do. That's probably why they killed him. It was the only way to get him to shut the fuck up.

Pening juga nak fahamkan premis ayat-ayat falsafah ni rupanya. Watak Khaidir & Hussin turut membimbing mainan emosi ketika pembacaan. Di awal/akhir setiap bab, disisipkan kisah 2 sahabat dalam penjara ni, mirip seperti apa yang sedang dihadapi oleh Socrates itu sendiri.

Mujur la aku pernah baca buku Filsuf Untuk Noob, karya Dayang Sifar sebelum baca buku ni. Dapat la sikit-sikit gambaran awal dunia ahli filsuf & falsafah klasik ni macam mana. Ringkasnya, buku ini menarik.

No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it were an incantation, which is why I have been prolonging my tale. That is the reason why a man should be of good cheer about his own soul, if during life he has ignored the pleasures of the body and its ornamentation as of no concern to him and doing him more harm than good, but has seriously concerned himself with the pleasures of learning, and adorned his soul not with alien but with its own ornaments, namely, moderation, righteousness, courage, freedom and truth, and in that state awaits his journey to the underworld.

Phaedo is the final, longest, toughest, but most rewarding of the dialogues which form the trial and death of Socrates. I was surprised by the similarities between Socrates' conception of the soul and the similar Hindu philosophy of metempsychosis, which most analyses of Phaedo attribute to Plato being influenced by Pythagoreanism. Very interesting.

Le Phédon, ou comment faire de la mort un sujet lyrique et intensément beau. Socrate, au-delà de sa vision de la Terre, nous livre une magnifique interprétation de la mort, de la réincarnation et de l'âme. Une spiritualité forte, qui n'exhorte qu'à s'interroger encore et toujours sans craindre la mort dès lors qu'on reste philosophe dans l'âme.
RIP Socrate.

ATTA BOY, PHAEDO!

Alright! The final panel in my platonic quadriptych! It’s been a great ride through antiquity and I thank everyone who's joined me on this jaunt.

It all started with my salacious review of the Symposium. Then a quick < ja accuse / > for the Trail and Apology, what did I say about Apology? Hmm, it eludes me.

And now, the fightin' Phaedo!

Again, again I think of the Renaissance scribe. (I’m a Renaissance fiend “But I am doing much better, thank you for asking”). I think of the monks, and lawyers turned poets, those scribe hunters who discovered these writings.

Cause, Phaedo, this Plato stuff, it clicks with Christian mythology. That the soul is eternal and outlives the body? That a pure life leads to heaven? So and on and such forth?

IT SINGS!

Having an Original Edition Plato must have been even better than digging up the Lacoon. It must have been beneficent. A weird finite form of proof, this philosophy. The monks did have copies (Aristotle was the philosopher preferred of the late church until about 1439-or-so when Plato would practically become a god) but they were so thoroughly annotated as to render them useless. They had to go to Spain and Turkey to find a good version. And when they did…

Humanist: Why would you mess with this? This is gold I tell you, < pure gold! / > I think we’ll be able to sneak these bad boys into the Bible. Easy as you please!

“Socrates and Plato” Will Durant say in his book on the Renaissance, “had expounded a monotheism as noble as that of the prophets. They too, in their minor way, had received a divine relation.”
And
“They had thought they had found in Plato—clouded with Plotinus—a mystical philosophy that would enable them to retain a Christianity that they had ceased to believe in, but never ceased to love.”

That’s the point I’m angling to line: It would have been so easy to screw these stories into the bible (around Ecclesiastics, when the vibe’s getting funky). Why not? What a grab that would have been. It could have spared us the Reformation!

Last point: That Socrates though, he's a cool cat (would have condemned him) for sure. His friend asked him what he’d like his children to be when they were older and he responded:

Socrates: I just hope they aren’t assholes who care only about vanity and money. I think that would be pretty fly.

Socrates, Patron Saint of Outsiders.

Definitely one of my favourite dialogues. I got teary eyed at the end. I could talk about souls and immortality and opposites and ways of knowing for hours and this dialogue made me feel like I was right there with Socrates, Phaedo, Plato, Thebans, Cebes and Simmias. Highly recommend.

Mungkin buku ni bukan untuk aku. Berkerut dahi aku nak fahamkan buku ni. Apakah kalau aku baca versi bahasa asal, aku akan lehih faham? Entahlah. Haha.

Socrates is dead. Phaedo has witnessed Socrates's death, and happens to run into a friend or acquaintance named Echecrates a few days later in the Greek city of Phlius. Socrates having had a reputation as an exceedingly wise man, Echecrates would like to know exactly what he said before his death. "Let's do this"... no, my mistake, I think that was Gary Gilmore. Where were we? Yes, that's right- Phaedo, apparently a reservoir of stamina, obliges Echecrates by reciting everything that Socrates said verbatim, if you can believe that, as well as the interjections from the others who were there. The subject of their discussion, at least in the beginning, is why Socrates seems so unnaturally solicitous of death- or whether it really should be unnatural to think of death solicitously. In Crito, Socrates has even refused an attempt by his friend to help him escape from prison before his execution. 

Socrates proposes the existence of a soul that throughout life is shackled to a corrupting body; the body leads the soul away from the path of wisdom and towards vice, desire and pettiness. For a philosopher, who should value wisdom above all else, death is an opportunity for the soul to exist, finally, unfettered by eating, drinking, sleeping, pissing, shitting, sexual desire, etc. This is asceticism, sainthood. Or it's dread, which is where I think a lot of my early interest in Buddhism came from. Socrates's view seems in line with the Buddha's Noble Truths (not the only similarity this dialogue has with Buddhism)- that life is suffering, that suffering is caused by attachment, etc. A modern view might disregard the concept of a soul altogether; but if 'mind' has taken the place of 'soul' to describe that which is unseen, that general modern view would probably hold that real wisdom is in finding harmony between the the mind and the body and recognizing their inseparability; that real wisdom has to account for pissing, shitting, drinking and fucking, as well as getting sick and shopping in the grocery store while terrible music plays- both the pleasures and burdens of having a body in the only world we know. Socrates's view is unlike, say, Descartes's mind-body dualism, because Socrates acknowledges that the body has an influence on the soul- he is just disgusted that the soul must toil on earth, gradually habituated to corruption. 

I think that some of George Orwell's comments on Gandhi seem applicable to Socrates's view here:

Gandhi's teachings cannot be squared with the belief that Man is the measure of all things and that our job is to make life worth living on this earth, which is the only earth we have. They make sense only on the assumption that God exists and the world of solid objects is an illusion to be escaped from. 

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life...No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.

Satisfied with Socrates's answer? No, Socrates's interlocutors weren't, either. That's all well and good Socrates, says either Simmias or Cebes, I'm afraid I can't remember at this point (these are two of the guys, presumably Socrates's friends, sitting with Socrates and Phaedo), but surely you must be aware that many people fear that the soul is simply extinguished upon the death of the body. Socrates makes a little joke about those who are unlucky enough to die during gales- oops, there goes your soul. Then he moves into the first of his arguments for the immortality of the soul, which I would have called the Argument from Opposites but which the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy informs me is known as the Cyclical Argument. The idea as I understand it is that all things come from their opposite states: that which is larger had to have been at one point smaller, for example. Furthermore, there are opposite processes that exist between these pairs: the process of increase and the process of decrease. If we take the opposites of being awake and being asleep (to choose the example that seemed clearest to me, although yes, through Socrates's slight-of-hand we've moved from a pair of comparatives to a pair of actual opposites), it's clear that we can only awaken from the state of sleep, and that we can only fall asleep from the state of having been awake. Therefore, since life and death are also opposites, the same relation must hold true- there must be a certain place where the souls of the dead congregate, waiting to be born into new bodies (unless, Socrates suggests, they've achieved a philosophical purity that presumably brings the cycle to an end- another similarity with Buddhism). The purpose of our lives therefore, as in plural, is a gradual process of refinement and attunement, to prepare us for when we move on to...well, something, or maybe nothing. Socrates gets to that at the end, actually.

In his next argument, the Argument from Recollection, Socrates suggests that a certain kind of knowledge is in reality recollection. Two sticks held side-by-side, for example, may seem equal, but fall short of true Equality. Certain things may be beautiful, but only because they share in the Beautiful. A verdict in court may be just, but only because it is one of many possible representations of Justice, which is nonphysical and thus inaccessible to us in this world. This, again according to the IEP, is arguably the first mention in Plato's writing of his theory of Forms. How can we have knowledge of true Equality, or Beauty, or Justice, if these things don't exist in the world we inhabit? It must be that we recollect them, from a time before we were born; hence, the soul exists before birth. 

Great. Problem solved. Are we ready to die without trepidation now? Well...okay, sure, get back to me on that. Fix yourself a stiff drink and come back to this review. Not to fear, though; Socrates still has two more arrows in his quiver, which I am not going to get into here because, frankly, it would involve a lot more writing, but which you can read about in the IEP entry,

http://www.iep.utm.edu/phaedo/

...or in Phaedo itself. But I'm finding the experience of going back to Plato strange, and Phaedo is particularly strange. I appreciate it the way one might appreciate a dream, or an acid trip, or a tropical depression, or a séance. While Socrates makes claims here that are entirely unfalsifiable, Phaedo is moving. First of all, the subject matter is inherently moving. Secondly, Plato is the beginning of formal logic; listening to Socrates speak with his interlocutors, you become aware that these humans, our brothers, are learning to argue, exploring this thing called logic, testing out, like a bicycle, what it can do and what it can't (and we still haven't quite mastered it, have we?). None of the speakers are trying to satisfy their own egos; rather, they want to see if it's possible to discover the truth of the matter. The problem, as Phaedo reports having worried about halfway through the discussion, is that "...these matters are inherently obscure." Uh yeah, you can say that again.  

Then again, I have to admit that I may be very wrong about what's going on here. Socrates says something towards the end that I found extremely odd. No, not the part about the concentric rings of water, where he speculates on the precise geographic location of the place where the souls of the dead reside, waiting to be born again; or that those who are set free from the cycle of, well, let's call it metempsychosis, end up on the earth's true surface, which to us is as accessible as what we regard as the earth's surface to fish. No, it's after all this that Socrates says,

Of course, no reasonable man ought to insist that the facts are exactly as I have described them. But that either this or something very like it is a true account of our souls and their future habitations- since there is certainly evidence that the soul is deathless- this, I think, is both a fitting contention and a belief worth risking; for the risk is a noble one. We should use such accounts to enchant ourselves with...

This echoes a statement Socrates makes towards the middle of the dialogue, after Cebes asks him what to do about the "child" inside each of us who fears death. Socrates responds, "What you should do...is to pronounce an enchantment over him every day until you have charmed his fears away."

"We should use such accounts to enchant ourselves with." Maybe Socrates is right. Maybe we should, and maybe the occasionally tortured logic in Phaedo is all an attempt to lend that enchantment the guise of truth. Or maybe we shouldn't. If someone like Ernest Becker is correct, there is nothing more important than how we choose to deal with the fear of death. Either way, these are odd words coming from a man whose reputation is of a skeptic, committed to wisdom above all else.