Young Somlles: Herc, too, the nm1wcr is clc:nr; we: llim to become better dialecticinnK wit.h rc1uird lo nll poNMiblc NuhjcclN. 1111
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As we see, the subject-matter of the dialogue counts less than the method applied in it, and the solution of a problem has less value than the road travelled in common in order to resolve it. The point is not to find the answer to a problem before anyone else, but to practice, as effectively as possible, the application of a method:
ease and speed in reaching the answer to the problem propounded are most commendable, but the logos requires that this be only a secondary, not a primary reason for commending an argument. What we must value first and foremost, above all else, is the philosophical method itself, and this consists in ability to divide according to forms. If, therefore, either a lengthy logos or an unusually brief one leaves the hearer more able to find the forms, it is this presentation of the logos which must be diligently carried through .103
As a dialectical exercise, the Platonic dialogue corresponds exactly to a spiritual exercise. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, discreetly but genuinely, the dialogue guides the interlocutor - and the reader - towards conversion. Dialogue is only possible if the interlocutor has a real desire to dialogue: that is, if he truly wants to discover the truth, desires the Good from the depths of his soul, and agrees to submit to the rational demands of the Logos. u>1 His act of faith must correspond to that of Socrates: "It is because I am convinced of its truth that I am ready, with your help, to inquire into the nature of virtue. "IO>
In fact, the dialectical effort is an ascent in common towards the truth and towards the Good, "which every soul pursues."10t• Furthermore, in Plato's view, every dialectical exercise, precisely because it is an exercise of pure thought, subject to the demands of the Logos, turns the soul away from the sensible world, and allows it to convert itself towards the Good. 107 It is the spirit's itinerary towards the divine.
3 Learning to Die
There is a mysterious connection between language and death. This was one of the favorite themes of the late Brice Parain, who wrote:
"l anguagc develops only upon the death of individuals.
..
" H>R
For the
Logos represents a demand for universal rationality, and presupposes a world of immutable norms, which are opposed to the perpetual state of becoming and changing appetites characteristic of individual, corporeal lifo. In this opposition, he who remains faithful to the Logos risks losing his life. This w1111 the c1111" with Socrates who died for his faithfulness to the
,
I .Ol(flN.
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Spiritual Exercises
Socrates' death was the radical event which founded Platonism. After all, the essence of Platonism consists in the affirmation that the Good is the ultimate cause of all beings. In the words of a fourth-century Neoplatonist: If all beings are beings only by virtue of goodness, and if they participate in the Good, then the first must necessarily be a good which transcends being. Here is an eminent proof of this: souls of value despise being for the sake of the Good, whenever they voluntarily place themselves in danger, for their country, their loved ones, or for virtue.109
Socrates exposed himself to death for the sake of virtue. He preferred to die rather than renounce the demands of his conscience, 110 thus preferring the Good above being, and thought and conscience above the life of his body.
This is nothing other than the fundamental philosophical choice. If it is true that philosophy subjugates the body's will to live to the higher demands of thought, it can rightly be said that philosophy is the training and apprenticeship for death. As Socrates puts it in the Phaedo: "it is a fact, Simmias, that those who go about philosophizing correctly are in training for death, and that to them of all men death is least alarming." 1 1 1
The death i n question here i s the spiritual separation o f the soul and the body:
separating the soul as much as possible from the body, and accustoming it to gather itself together from every part of the body and concentrate itself until it is completely independent, and to have its dwelling, so far as it can, both now and in the future, alone and by itself, freed from the shackles of the body .1 12
Such is the Platonic spiritual exercise. But we must be wary of misinterpreting it. In particular, we must not isolate it from the philosophical death of Socrates, whose presence dominates the whole of the Phaedo. The separation between soul and body under discussion here - whatever its prehistory - bears absolutely no resemblance to any state of trance or catalepsy. In the latter, the body loses consciousness, while the soul is in a supernatural visionary state. 1 13
All the arguments in the Phaedo, both preceding and following the passage we have quoted above, show that the goal of this philosophical separation is for the soul to liberate itself, shedding the passions linked to the corporeal senses, so as to attain to the autonomy of thought. 1 14
We can perhaps get a better idea of this spiritual exercise if we understand it as an attempt to liberate ourselves from a partial, pasi;ionnte point of view -
linked to the senses and the body - so as to rise tu 1hc uni vcrN11I, 11or11111tivc viewpoint of thou!(hl, submitrin!( ourselves to lhr tll•111111uh1 of 1 lw I .011011 ond
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the norm of the Good. Training for death is trammg to die to one 's individuality and passions, in order to look at things from t\le perspective of universality and objectivity.
·
Such an exercise requires the concentration of thought upon itself, by means of meditation and an inner dialogue. Plato alludes to this process in the Republic, once again in the context of the tyranny of individual passions.
The tyranny of desire, he tells us, shows itself particularly clearly in dreams: The savage part of the soul . . . does not hesitate, in thought, to try to have sex with its mother, or with anyone else, man, god, or animal. It is ready to commit any bloody crime; there is no food it would not eat; and, in a word, it does not stop short of any madness or shamclessness.1 15
To liberate ourselves from this tyranny, we are to have recourse to a spiritual exercise of the same type as that described in the Phaedo: When, however, a man does not go to sleep before he has awakened his rational faculty, and regaled it with excellent discourses and investigations, concentrating himself on himself, having also appeased the appetitive part . . . and calmed the irascible part . . . once he has calmed these two parts of the soul, and stimulated the third, in which reason resides . . . it is then that the soul best attains to truth. 116
Here we shall ask the reader's indulgence to embark on a brief digression.
To present philosophy as "training for death" was a decision of paramount importance. As Socrates' interlocutor in the Phaedo was quick to remark, such a characterization seems somewhat laughable, and the common man would be right in calling philosophers moribund mopers who, if they are put to death, will have earned their punishment well. 1 17 For anyone who ta.kes philosophy seriously, however, this Platonic dictum is profoundly true. It has had an enormous influence on Western philosophy, and has been taken up even by such adversaries of Platonism as Epicurus and Heidegger. Compared to this formulation, the philosophical verbiage both of the past and of the present seems empty indeed. In the words of La Rochefoucauld, "Neither the sun nor death can be looked at directly." 1 18