Five Dialogues

Recently my daughter's boyfriend was restricted for a week. As she bemoaned the fact that she wasn't going to see him and that he couldn't even call her on the phone, she explained his crime. Her story was that he forgot to let the dog out. It seemed unreasonable for a parent to restrict a child for a week for such an infraction, but that was her story and she was sticking to it. I found out later that he had sneaked through a window and out of the house to smoke a cigarette. He was caught on his way back in as he drug his snow-covered boots over the antique desk that sits in front of the window. My daughter had tried to present her boyfriend in the best possible light and in the process told a thinly veiled lie.


That is how I felt when I finished reading Plato's Five Dialogues -- Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo. Before we were married, my husband purchased a complete set of the Great Books of the Western World. This is the translation I read. I don't know whether or not this is considered a good translation of Plato or not. I am unsure whether experts in language would agree that the translation accurately reflects Plato's thoughts and ideas. But, the translation was easy to read and understand.

The Apostle Paul boasted of sitting at the feet of Gamileal. Well, Plato sat at the feet of Socrates. He was mentored and learned from him. The story Plato tells is not unbiased. Socrates was a man he respected greatly. And, I suspect he was trying to present Socrates in the best possible light. Because, if I understood the reading correctly, Socrates was tried and put to death for being a boor! They did this when he was 70 years old and ready to die of natural causes. Which of course makes little sense.

"Did you not put to death Socrates the sophist, fellow citizens, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who overthrew the democracy?" ~ Aeschines

Two years ago, my daughter and I read Plato's Republic as part of her home school curriculum. Plato's ideal city-state isn't a democracy. It isn't even a republic. It is an oligarchy.

Perhaps, I am wrong. Perhaps, Socrates really truly was executed because he pointed out the flaws in the reasoning of Greece's upper crust. It seems more likely that his young students were taking his ideas about government and running amok with them. I think there is more to the story than what is contained in the pages of the dialogue. If I am wrong, I will join Simmias in saying:

I perceive that I was unconsciously talking nonsense. ~ Simmias, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo

That was my favorite line from the book! And it came from the most difficult dialogue to read. It was also the dialogue that stimulated the most thought. Phaedo takes place in Socrates' prison cell just before he is to drink the poison hemlock. In it Socrates and some of his pupils discuss what happens to the soul after death. Plato didn't attend Socrates' death. He relates the story as told by Phaedo. I think the major difficulty I had following this dialague was that Socrates' thoughts were communicated in the third person.

"And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body; the dwelling in her own place alone, as in another life, so also in this, as far as she can; -- the release of the soul from the chains of the body?" ~ Socrates, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo

There are times when I feel my reading is being guided by a force outside of myself. When I am feeling less mystical and more practical, I know that some questions are eternal. I multi-read. That means I have a stack of books on my bedside table that I have started and not finished. One of the other books that I am currently reading is NT Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. In it Wright points out that the hope of Christians is not a disembodied soul living eternally in heaven. In fact, we are promised a physical, bodily resurrection here on earth. The idea that creation and matter are bad and a distortion of what perfectly exists elsewhere isn't biblical. Yet, this idea has crept into the teachings and doctrines of the church.

In the end, it is my opinion, that the most important question that the Five Dialogues seeks to answer is this:

"But then, O my friends, he said, if the soul is really immortal, what care should be taken of her, not only in respect of the portion of time which is called life, but of eternity! Socrates, as quoted by Phaedo in Plato's Phaedo.

Last, and as an aside, I had never really thought about Socrates having a wife and children. He did have a wife. She was in the prison the day he died. He sent her away at the end so that he could die in peace. He didn't want a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. But, she seemed devoted to him until the end. Socrates is said to have said of her:

It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.

I did not read this in context. But, I suspect that Socrates may have thought that this was the highest praise he could pay anyone. After all, he felt that being a gadfly to the entire Greek citizenry was his highest calling.