Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial 2.B.1. A Genealogy of the Philosophic Enlightenment in Classical Greece Chapter 13: Phaedo (part 2) ACADEMY | previous section | Table of Content | next section | GALLERY

copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005 by Lawrence C. Chin.

We must now turn to that thorny topic of the Platonic forms.

Forms (eide, eidos, idea), though working hypotheses, are laws of or governing existence (of anything), conceived in and/or proper to the functional perspective, correlative to the laws of nature in the structural perspective, e.g. the Standard Model, the elementary particles, forces, etc., and also to the Heideggerian Weltlichkeit or In-der-Welt-sein -- these principles of the structural perspective together explaining whence things came and why they are the way they are. One may say that the Platonic forms of ancient time descended (or diverged) into the physical sciences plus the Heideggerian phenomenological reflexive ontology as in Sein und Zeit¹. These forms represent the conservedness behind changes: despite things' coming and passing, the laws governing these comings and passings never change, and are their forms. This is just as in quantum field theory where protons always change into other particles, e.g. neutrons and pions, in definite ways and proportions (e.g. a proton diverges into a pair of proton and pion⁰ which then recombine into the original proton or into a neutron and a pion⁺ which then recombine into the original proton). The law never changes, but governs things' changing... and the law (that the proton should only change into a definite number of definite other particles) is a reflection of the law of Conservation. The changes are not arbitrary because constrained by the necessity of Conservation. The same here with Plato: the ways things exist (i.e. forms) never change; and moreover they, as ways of existence, lead eventually to existence itself, the Conservation of existence (the Good), which makes possible the ways to exist. This is the thermodynamic reading. In traditional metaphysics: the Good (Agathon) = Being, and forms = being of beings; because of Being, there is the multitudinal being of beings. That is, one first recognizes the being (to be, being-process or be-ing) of individual things; the to-be of a table as different from the to-be of a temple, the to-be of 5 from the to-be of 1, the to-be of a just way of life different from the to-be of a ugly thing. The to-be of one thing is different from the to-be of another. But is it? The to-be of all things is essentially the one to-be, which is the Good. This is the traditional metaphysical reading (e.g. Guerrièrean). The Good comes from the Parmenidean "Is" as pure conservedness or Being pure and simple (as what must be admitted in the immediate articulation of Being); but a bridge between conservedness (Being, Is) and the physis of the second law of thermodynamics seems formed here, via eidos. A solution to the Parmenidean paradox of the non-connection between Being and beings?² Not really. There is still no reason why Being should ever absence itself to get beings.

The forms are successful as the structure of reality in the functional perspective. They explain why things are what they are -- but what about whence they came? Also, in the structural perspective they are no longer realistic, and so, as we shall see, Heidegger's Being and Time explains once and for all why things are what they are and not something else (e.g. why a table is a table and not a chair or not even just a flat board with four legs): the Worldhood (Weltlichkeit) disclosed by Dasein's self-interpretation (being-there, being-in-the-world) which "lights up" things as they are.

The "theory of forms" originally started only with the "forms" of ethics, such as "virtue", "justice", or "piety", which were historical Socrates' sole concerns (Plato's early dialogues; in this way Socrates' project was no different than Confucius' "rectification of names"). Plato then investigated the forms of physical or geometric properties that underlie the forms of ethics, such as the "equalness" here in Phaedo. This investigation into nature was beyond what the historical Socrates had really attempted. Only by Book X of the Republic, when he used the form of an artifact, "bed", to explicitate the realms of being, could Plato be seen to have completed the project of positing "forms" as the "laws of existence" in general, like Heidegger's "being". (Richard Kraut's Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Plato; p. 5 - 9.) In a way, one can say that the theory of forms is the generalization of the method of geometry (the original, and most obvious, forms are those of Pythagorean geometry) to encompass all of the physical world and the world of values. As we will see later, it is the compactness of consciousness at this stage of the functional perspective which allows Plato to assimilate values into the physical and mathematical world so as to establish the absolute precision and objectivity of "good" and "bad": "for it is possible to make a mistake about two equal objects and to believe them unequal, but no one can make a comparable mistake about Equality itself, and take it to be unequal" (ibid., p. 7). The precision of the existence (way of being) of forms is due to its tautological nature, as will be seen below with "soul".

In the functional perspective it is strange that the soul would know the laws of existence -- although people only know them unconsciously, as Socrates' definitional quest has shown: everyone must know them but no one can articulate them. The soul hence, as concluded here, must have at one time been conserved in the conservation of existence itself, there knowing its "structure" (forms), which then, in a way, is the Divine being conscious of itself.

Plato's "theory of forms" in a way represents a certain completion, or synthesis, of the philosophy of Hellas. Eric Voegelin:

Voegelin's characterization is not quite correct, however. What Plato has done is to adopt the Ionians' vocabulary for the conservation of the material being of beings (their search for the eternal is on the side of the physical or "material"), use it on the eternal "laws" that govern the showing of these beings (at this stage: mostly the forms of static being, like geometric figures) as discovered by the Pythagoreans (their search for the eternal is on the side of the "formal"), and then mix Parmenides' salvational vision with Orphics' salvational structure to produce a second mode of salvation via eidetic study. This is the complex nature of Plato's synthesis. This synthesis in a way reflects the stages in Socrates' philosophic education: "The first stage Socrates gives in the Phaedo. There he tells his disciples about his conversion from thinking of the cause in an Ionian manner [as we'll see presently] to his discovery of the ideas and his turn to speeches." This is roughly the turn from the Ionian "material" conservation to the "constants in showing" of the Pythagorean type. "The second phase is in the first half of the Parmenides, where Parmenides proves the impossibility of his ideas. According to Parmenides, the most telling objection to them is that even if they exist they cannot be known by us, for there must be a complete separation between divine and human knowledge. It seems to be Diotima [in the Symposium], with her notion of the in-between or the demonic, who offered Socrates a way out of the impasse Parmenides left him in." (Seth Benardete, "On Plato's Symposium", in his translation of Symposium, p. 191) Thus the ideas become assimilated to Parmenides' Being, but not quite identical to it, because this Being itself remains the teleological point for grounding all of them, i.e. the Good. In the next exposition of the "theory of forms" as found in the Republic the in-between nature of the empirical world will figure prominent in the discussion.

So follows next in Phaedo the presentation of the first phase of Socrates' education or intellectual biography (by now a life in search of the everlasting -- the philosophic life -- has transfigured from a life in search of the eternal material source of everything such as among the Ionian physicists into a life in search of the reason of why things are the way they are -- and not so much of whence they came), in which is given the "hypothesizing" or derivation of forms, the explanation of why the forms must be hypothesized, i.e. put under any thing we say and perceive, and the last grounding of the immortality of the soul therein.

There is in fact a certain compactness, with both the Ionians and Plato, of the question of why things are thusly and of whence they came. One implies the other. The Ionian physicists did speak of aitia, the reason for why things are the way they are, why things -- the cosmos -- are so orderly. For the way things are is not random or arbitrary, but orderly. aitia are the principles determining the orderliness of the cosmos and everything in it. The transfiguration in the search of origin (arche) is more a shift of attention away from the material substrate (the elements) from which things came.

Socrates is thus in quest of the aitia: "to know the reasons for each thing, why each thing comes to be, why it perishes, and why it exists [is]." (eidenai taV aitiaV ekastou, dia ti gignetai ekaston kai dia ti apollutai kai dia ti esti. 96 b.)

Conventional explanations are incomplete and so unsatisfactory, an example of which: "whenever the hot and the cold give rise to putrefaction... living things develop." (epeidan to qermon kai to yucron shpedona tina labhi... tote dh ta zwia suntrefetai [to grow up together, to be organized]. 96 b3.) Another example of conventional explanation, of why human being grows: "it was because of eating and drinking; whenever, from food, flesh came to accrue to flesh, and bone to bone, and similarly according to the same reasoning (logon) the corresponding matter came to accrue to each of the other parts, it was then that the little bulk later came to be big; and in this way the small human being came to be large." (oti dia to esqiein kai pinein. epeidan gar ek twn sitiwn taiV men sarxi sarkeV prosgenwntai, toiV de ostoiV osta, kai outw kata ton auton logon kai toiV alloiV ta autwn oikeia ekastoiV prosgenhtai, tote dh to oligon ogkon onta usteron polun gegonenai, kai outw gignesqai to smikron anqrwpon megan. 96 d.) Note that while the first example, typical of the functional perspective and of the pre-Socratics, like, on the Chinese side, the qi (air) putrefying into various things, is meaningless (not wrong) in the structural perspective, the second one is essentially correct, i.e. corresponds to explanations given in the structural perspective. We grow through bio-synthesis and the food we eat provides the material: the amino-acids (about 20 kinds) from food are built into the proteins that form the structural (e.g. body parts) and functional elements (e.g. those involved in performing bodily functions, like metabolism) of our body; the lipids (formed of carbon and hydrogen) that we ingest are built into cell membranes and the fat of our body; the carbohydrate (sugar molecules, with its fundamental unit, the carbohydrate monomers called monosaccharides, built from, or as the multiples of, the fundamental unit CH₂O) that we ingest are used as fuel for bodily functions and movements, or their carbon skeleton (of monosaccharides) may be extracted to build organic molecules, like amino acids, or the unused monosaccharides may simply be stored as disaccharides or polysaccharides in fat for future use; and finally the nucleotides (each formed of a phosphate, sugar, and nitrogenous base) from food are incorporated into the nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) of our body for their reproduction in cells and sperms and eggs. The conventional explanation of the functional perspective is more or less "correct" because, given the intuition of the first law of thermodynamics, that nothing can come out of nothing, and the body cannot grow out of nothing, consciousness sees no alternative except that the body must have grown from what have gone into it: food. The explanation is then of the type: the body gets bigger (grows) by adding more to it.

A third example of conventional explanation: Why is one person (perceived to be) taller than another? By being larger (taller) by a head; i.e. the same as above, a thing is or gets bigger by the addition of more to it. The same explanation is given for why 10 is more than 8: because 10 = 8 + 2, i.e. because 2 more is added to it in comparison with 8.

This sort of conventional explanations of things, i.e. through the temporal or continuous chain of cause and effect, of adding more things or subtracting more, or rearranging them to produce the new things, are, for Socrates, incomplete, because they do not explain why we know these things as what they are in the first place so that we can actually discern their mutual combinations and separations that generate new things. "Why, I can't even persuade myself any longer that I know why it is that one comes to be; nor why anything else comes to be, or perishes, or exists, following the way of that method [i.e. continuous chain of combination or separation or rearrangement of some elemental things]." (oude ge di'oti en gignetai wV epistamai, eti peiqw emauton, oud'allo ouden eni logwi di'oti gignetai h apollutai h esti, kata touton ton tropon thV meqodou. 97 b-5.)

In other words, the problem with the conventional explanations is that they explain beings by references to other beings or their processes (conglomeration, splitting, etc.); a complete explanation explains beings in terms of Being.

Socrates next moves to the pre-Socratic pantheism. The pre-Socratic physicists are on the right track in not explaining the way beings are and why they come to be by reference to other beings or their internal material constitution, their interactions, conglomerations, and separations; but by reference to Being. But they then deviate into the wrong track, by explaining Being as beings! Socrates at first thought quite right the approach of Anaxagoras: wV ara nouV estin o diakosmwn te kai pantwn aitioV; 97 c. "It is nous that orders [everything] (diakosmon) and is the reason of all things. [i.e. that determines the order of things -- the way they are]." The ordering of things is so orderly, even purposeful, as revealed in the state of mind or attitude of thaumazein "being amazed by the beauty of nature", that this order seems the best possible, seems so meaningful, like the Anthropic principle of modern physics: Universe's self-unfolding (Entfaltung) seems so purposeful, i.e. directed toward the possibility of life and intelligence -- that hence, metaphorically, we call it "intelligence" or "mind" (nous), likening it to the way, ideally, an intelligent being does things purposefully, i.e. to accomplish the best possible state of affairs. hghsamhn, ei touq'outwV ecei, ton ge noun kosmounta panta kosmein kai ekaston tiqenai tauthi ophi an beltista echi. "I thought that, if that's the case, then intelligence [nous] in its ordering must order all things and place each thing in such a way that it is the best possible way." ei oun tiV bouloito thn aitian eurein peri ekastou ophi gignetai h apollutai h esti, touto dein peri autou eurein, ophi beltiston autwi estin h einai h allo otioun pascein h poiein. "So if anyone wanted to find out the reason [cause] about each thing as to why it comes to be and perishes or exists, one must find out about it as to how it is best for it to be or to undergo change [to suffer, to be acted upon] or to act." Hence the ultimate reason or explanation is, of this and every other thing, "the best and highest good". (to ariston kai to beltiston; 97 c5 - d3.)

Hence to give the reason for the shape of the earth (flat or round, disk or cylinder) one simply tries to explain why it is best for it to be like this.

But Anaxagoras, Socrates continues, deviates from his own principle and merely explains the order of things by the mechanical workings of their elemental constituents (air, water, etc.), i.e. the same old processes of beings like turning, combination, separation, etc. This is like explaining why Socrates sits in the prison cell awaiting execution by reference to the mechanics of his body: the turning of bones and the stretching of sinews. But Socrates sits here because he has a good reason, his choice of what is best (thi tou beltistou airesei), not because he can, physically. "It would be quite true to say that without possessing such things as bones and sinews, and whatever else I possess, I shouldn't be able to do what I judged best (ta doxanta moi)." (99 b.) But the reason proper (to aition twi onti) and the means by which the reason may be implemented (ekeino aneu ou to aition ouk an pot'eih aition) must be distinguished. Yet people have taken the latter for the former. So again, the form is there: for the earth to be found in the center of the cosmos, for example, it is not enough to explain this as a consequence of, say, the air around it binding it to its place. Why should the air bind? Where is the nous in this? Certainly the binding occurs through the binding produced by the movement of the air, but it binds because of binding, i.e. the form of "binding" of which the binding effect of the movement of the air is the materialization, just as formerly it is the form of "big" or "more" which makes possible, in the first place, our perception of a person being bigger than another by a head or 10 being more than 8 by 2 and consequently our wrong-headed mistaking of the mechanisms (addition or subtraction, etc.) by which being bigger and more materializes for the reason of this materialization, i.e. the condition of possibility of being bigger and more. But moreover, the binding should not even materialize into the specific case of the air binding the earth in its place unless this binding is good, i.e. necessary. In the structural perspective the reasoning is like explaining why there is electricity. Because of the flowing of electrons on a conductor (like the binding by the movement of the air). But why should electrons flow on a conductor, say copper? Because certain elements like copper have the electrons on the outershell of the atoms free flowing... But more advancedly the explanation has to be in terms of the atomic model and the Maxwellian equations describing electromagnetism (like the form binding) which however still leaves open the question, "why should the laws of electromagnetism be thus?" One may answer this with quantum electrodynamics, then electro-weak theory, then the Grand Unified Theory; but the answer is never fully given until the laws of nature can be "deduced" as a self-consistent necessity rather than posited as accidental. And this is the stage of the Platonic Good. The point of Socrates (Plato) is, to put it in another way, that the cosmos is teleological, like the anthropic principle of modern day physics. It is probably even good that the forms of big and more should materialize in such instances as one man being bigger than another by a head or 10 being more than 8 by 2, that is, that this man should be bigger than the other by a head and 10 be more than 8 by 2. The forms, though making perceptions, and so the meanings of existence possible, must refer back to that Form of the Good, Agathon, just as in the earlier consideration of the forms in the aspect of the laws of existence they refer back to the form of Existence as such. So Socrates is sitting in the prison waiting for execution not just because he can, but because he has discerned the reason, the purpose, what he has called the choice of what is best, in the grand scheme of things. The conventional explanations of the common people, or rather more specifically the sophists, completely miss the conditions of possibility (forms) and then the condition of possibility for the conditions of possibility (the Good). kai wV alhqwV to agaqon kai deon sundein kai sunecein ouden oiontai. "That the good and binding truly bind and bring things together -- they do not consider this." (99 c 5) Note that the image of Necessity binding Being or existence to be the way it is occurs also in Parmenides: tou eineken oute genesqai out'ollusqai anhke Dikh callasasa pedhsin, all'ecei. "Thus neither does Dike, relaxing its chain, allow genesis nor dissolution, but holds fast." (Frag. 8, 13) This, as do the general notions like Fate (Moira) or Karma of ancient peoples, refers to the necessity of equilibrium and Conservation. It remains to be seen what the precise configuration of the motivation shall be behind the teleology (Necessity) of the cosmos and the ideal realm of forms in the case of Plato.

Hence the forms and the Form of the Good must be posited, hypothesized (upoqemenon) -- not just for "safety" reason. "It seems to me that if anything else is beautiful besides the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason at all than that it partakes of [participates in] that beautiful [form]." (fainetai gar moi, ei ti estin allo kalon plhn auto to kalon, oude di'en allo kalon einai h dioti metecei ekeinou tou kalou. 100 c 5) And so these sort of empirical explanations of things being the way they are or coming and passing by references to other beings or their empirical process do not explain, i.e. give reasons, but merely narrate. These are evidently favored by the sophists to whom Plato's thought is reaction, as they are called "clever [sophistic] reasons": taV allaV aitiaV taV sofaV tautaV. The sophists are empiricists, positivists, philodoxers (instead of philosophers), those who only see beings but not Being, things but not forms of things, accidents but not reasons or purposes.

Now a careful examination of the relationships between forms and things will be revelatory on the immortality of the soul, and so constitutes the last argument there-for.

First, occasions where things can partake of two opposite forms at the same time. E.g. Simmias is larger than Socrates but smaller than Phaedo: both are "in" Simmias, largeness (megeqoV) and smallness (smikrothta; 102 b 5). Now the description of such "double partaking", that "Simmias has the epithet of being both big and small at once" (o SimmiaV epwnumian ecei smikroV te kai megaV einai. 102 c 10) "ou gar pou pefukenai Simmian uperecein toutwi, twi Simmian einai, alla twi megeqei o tugcanei ecwn." "For it isn't by the nature of Simmias for him to overtop [Socrates, i.e.], by being Simmias, but by the largeness which he happens to have." "oude ge au upo FaidwnoV uperecesqai twi oti Faidwn o Faidwn estin, all'oti megeqoV ecei o Faidwn proV thn Simmiou smikrothta." "Nor is Simmias overtopped by Phaedo because Phaedo is Phaedo, but because of the largeness which Phaedo has in relation to the smallness of Simmias." (102 c - c 8) "It is because [Simmias] is between the two of them, submitting his smallness to the largeness of the two for it to overtop, and presenting to the other his largeness which overtops the latter's smallness." (en meswi wn amfoterwn, tou men twi megeqwi uperecein [to hold over] thn smikrothta upecwn, twi de to megeqoV thV smikrothtoV parecwn uperecon. 102 d.)

Rowe, the commentator, makes the point that in this first situation, largeness and smallness are only accidental features of Simmias, and do not belong to him essentially, i.e. not what Simmias is "in himself". They are relative features of Simmias, valid only in particular situations, i.e. relative to Socrates or Phaedo or any other. Something's participation in forms, in this situation, changes from one situation to the next. The description of contingent, accidental, or situational properties, i.e. contingent, etc., participation in forms, is important:

It is that the form retreats, and the partake of it ceases -- not that the form has changed, for the form is eternally immutable. A form can never become the opposite form. This is to be distinguished from the previous "things coming to be from their opposites", for those were opposite things (enantia pragmata), and things become the opposite of themselves through the cessation of participation in one form and the beginning participation in the opposite form, just as Simmias does from one comparison to another.

Second, occasions where things cannot or do not partake of two opposite forms at the same time. In this situation the one form is their essential property, or the participation in this form is essential, without which they cannot be what they are. mh monon auto to eidoV axiousqai tou autou onomatoV eiV ton aei cronon, alla kai allo ti o esti men ouk ekeino, ecei de thn ekeinou morfhn aei, otanper hi. (103 e 5.) "Not only is the form entitled to its own name for all time, but there is something else too, which is not the form, but which has the character [morphe] of that form, whenever it exists." E.g. snow (ciona) and fire (pur), though not the same as the form of "cold" (yucron) or "heat" (qermon), partake of these latter forms so essentially -- snow is forever cold and fire forever hot -- that when the opposite form (e.g. "heat") approaches one of them (e.g. "snow"), it either has to "retreat secretly" (upokcrwrhsein) or disintegrate (apoleisqai).

There is also such relationship of essential participation between forms and other forms. The form of snow, so to speak, participates essentially in the form of the cold. But more importantly, the form of 3 ("threeness" h triaV) participates also in the form of the "odd" (peritton). Snow and fire or their forms might seem opposite to one another, but these forms (e.g. "threeness", "fiveness") which participate in other (more basic ?) forms essentially would not accept what at first seems not to be opposite (e.g. "fourness"), simply because, say, the "even" in "fourness" is opposite to the form "odd" of which "threeness", say, partakes essentially. Hence: h ou fesomen ta tria kai apolesqai proteron kai allo otioun peisesqai, prin upomeinai eti tria onta artia [even] genesqai. "We say that the 3 will perish first or undergo some other changes, rather than remaining to be 3 still and yet becoming even." (104 c) Hence the form of even can never come to 3 (epi ta tria ara h tou artiou idea oudepote hxoi; 104 e).

Now what are some other examples of these forms (3 or 4) or forms of things (snow and fire)? Note first of all that "things which 3 occupies" (a an h twn triwn idea kataschi) is 3 and also odd, just as the form of 3 is 3 (i.e. itself) and also odd -- and they do not accept what is opposite to that of which they partake essentially. Secondly, it is seen that there are two cases in which things partake of forms: partaking inessentially, and so of two opposite forms at the same time; and partaking essentially, so only of one and never of the form opposite to that one. That a hot body is hot, then, can be said to be not only because it partakes of the form "heat" (the safe reason, asfalh -- never wrong because tautological; but ignorant amaqh -- because tautological: Gallop) but also -- beyond the tautological, that A is A because of partaking of A-ness -- because it contains the element fire (as a thing and so as the form of fire) whose partaking of the form of heat in fact is responsible for this hot body's being hot.

In the functional perspective life/ consciousness (the two compacted into the concept of soul) is objectified into an independently existing thing. A living body is living not merely because it partakes of the form of "aliveness" but because it contains this thing called "soul" (life/consciousness) whose essential participation in the form "aliveness" (without which the soul as "living", i.e. the principle of life, would not be what it is) is in fact responsible for the body's being alive. The last argument for the immortality of the soul then follows (as a dialogue between Socrates and Cebes):

Note that the argument works -- soul is indeed immortal -- because consciousness/ life is objectified into a "thing" here in the functional perspective rather than taken as an emergent property of the brain mass or the network of the mechanisms of cellular metabolism in the structural perspective and so as having no independent existence.

The form of "aliveness" or life (to thV zwhV eidoV) is by definition immortal. In the structural perspective of today this is like saying that the "formula" for the aggregation of the cells into a single multicellular organism and for cellular metabolism... etc., if implemented by the organic compound of which consists a human being, will always keep the person alive. This is tautological: what allows a living being to be living is what allows it (or others like it) to be living. (This, notwithstanding the studies on aging today which seem to point to certain genes embedded in the life's genome that program it to die after a certain period: the genes of death.) So the principle of life (yuch) which partakes of this form of life essentially would have to be immortal as well. If there were really such an independently existent thing as life/consciousness (taken together as soul) -- if the "formula" for living were actually a thing that flows into us to make us living rather than merely a description of how atoms and molecules interact with each other under what circumstances producing what effects -- then our life/ consciousness would indeed be immortal, it seems, as proven by the argument here. This argument makes perfect sense in the functional perspective, but sounds absurd to a contemporary medical doctor of the structural perspective.

Phaedo is a dialogue on philosophy as the second mode of salvation. Within this complex web of discourse, Rowe, for instance, identifies four "arguments" for the immortality of the soul: 1. The cyclical argument: the one of things coming to be from their opposites. 2. Learning as recollection (anamnesis), which implies the pre-existence of the soul (consciousness) before the person is born. 3. "The argument from affinity", the one on the nature of the soul: non-composite, eternal, unchanging, constant, unseen. 4. "The formal argument", that the immortality of the soul is consequent upon the nature of its participation in the form essential to it.

Concluding Plato's second mode of salvation: the final myth in Phaedo. Throughout his dialogues Plato adapts the Orphic-Pythagorean myths about the afterlife of the soul to his thinking about the dual nature of reality (forms and material, concrete existence). The myths which appear in so many of his dialogues are all about the soul in its cycle of life and death (see, for example, G. R. Levy's introduction to the second edition of J. A. Stewart's The Myths of Plato, 1905) and are used as images illustrating the dual dimensions between which the soul passes and the principle or "law" governing such passage. Plato is "Orphic" here in the sense that the purpose of Phaedo is not to show that Orphism is "wrong", but that its imageries are either "likely true" but mistaken to be "literally true" or just "unseemly". About the final myth of the afterlife here, the fate or journey of souls, we can thus say: (1) It is basically in the form of the Orphic myths; it takes up a (pre-Socratic-like) speculation as to the structure of the Earth (or of reality altogether): the upper world pointing forward toward the divided line and the allegory of the cave:³ we in a hollow of the real Earth, with ether-sphere above the atmosphere that we call sky, our sea to us in this hollow being what our air is to the living beings on the surface of the real Earth, and their ether being to them what our air is to us, and, from ether down through air to our water, the visibility of the real stars above the ether being steadily diminished; the lower, underground world below us recapitulating backward the old myths, with Tartarus in the center, from or around which the four great underground rivers, Oceanus, Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, and Cocytus (or Styx), wind around; along these rivers the souls of the dead go to the underworld for judgment, and get either tossed into Tartarus for eternity for being too evil, or punished and then sent for reincarnation. Socrates specifically emphasizes:

(2) Just as Xenophanes, when criticizing ordinary people's conception of gods as "unseemly", is not saying that there are no gods, but that they are representing gods incorrectly, i.e. in terms of the images of everyday life, so Plato (Socrates) here does believe, as Orphics do, in the existence of this "soul" as an independent "thing" from the body and having an afterlife (and thus the necessity of caring for it for the sake of afterlife); only that Plato is saying that the "soul" and its blissful disembodied after-life are not as the Orphics have described, who could only understand the mythic imageries based on those of everyday life. The soul really (i.e. in a way more approximate to the truth) is a "form," not air or any sort of physical substance, and its after-life is the disembodied way of being in the dimension of eidoi, not in a blissful "place" -- again, something like Orphic myth is true, but not exactly like that.

Ordinary people are told that one has to be "good" in order not to be "judged" and "punished" by the gods after life. Something like this is true, but not exactly like that. The soul after habitually contemplating and becoming wise and having not indulged in body's pleasures, becomes "well-ordered" (108 a 8) so that it will fare well in that other dimension of reality; that soul which does the opposite, becomes "wicked" (107 c 9) and dis-ordered, will by laws of nature as it were fare badly there, suffer, and in some cases reincarnated into unfortunate bodies. This is how the "dualistic" structure of reality functions, simply, and it does not involve the "anger" or "just feelings" of anthropomorphic gods.

Footnotes:

1. Through, for example, the intermediary form of Hegel's Enzyklopädie, which is a "system" of "forms", so to speak. C.f. below.

2. A solution to the problem of the disjuncture between Being and beings is offered by Marcel Conche in his conclusion, ibid., by re-reading the Being of Parmenides as the Being of Heidegger. See the chapter on Daodejing. But this sort of reading is taken as radical, distortive. C.f. the discussion of Being of traditional metaphysics, Heidegger's sense of Being, and the thermodynamic.

3. "Psychologically associated with escape from the Cave [in the Allegory of the Cave in Republic] is the Truth Earth of the Phaedo, from whose hollows men rise up like fishes out of the sea, to look upon as much of the truth as they can endure." (Levy, ibid., p. 15) The Allegory of the Cave is something like a reiteration of this myth in Phaedo.