Socrates' Views on Death

This essay will attempt to give a comprehensive view of Socrates' views on death in the Apology and the Crito. It will pay special attention to the following two problems. First, in the Apology, at 41c-d, Socrates sounds certain that death is not a bad thing, either for himself or for others, but then his closing statement, at 42a, sounds much less certain; is there an actual contradiction here? In order to attempt to clarify this, the essay will consider what Socrates apparently knows and doesn't know about death according to what he says in these dialogues.

Second, in the Apology, at 28b, Socrates clearly implies that fear of death should not be considered relevant by a good man who is making a decision about whether to do or not do something. However, at 31d-32a and at 32e, Socrates appears to be saying that he refrained from becoming involved in Athenian politics because he was afraid that he might lose his life if he were to become too public a figure--as seems to have happened with his trial. Is there an inconsistency here and, if so, how can it be cleared up?

In asking how much Socrates knew and what he believed about death, one is, of course, also facing several other problems. First, how much and what did Plato know and believe about death? Second, is the Socrates whom Plato presents the "real" Socrates? Or is he instead a fictive character invented by Plato for dramatic and philosophical reasons?

There are other contemporary descriptions of Socrates. The o

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of Athenian public life and political debates. It may be that the Athenians regarded his former students, despite their diversity, as amounting to something like a political party or cabal within the city's politics. If so, his denying that he was involved in politics was parallel to his denying that he was a Sophist. The Athenian jury would probably have considered both denials to themselves be sophistry based on technicalities. Or perhaps what is visible here is Plato's retrospective irony: looking back, he could see that Socrates had become engaged in Athenian political life and that it had indeed cost him his life. Socrates' refusal to beg and plead and become undignified in order to save his life may have been a question of principle, or it may have been his "passive-aggressive" pursuit of death. In any event, the jury would no doubt have seen his intransigence as further evidence of his lack of respect for the authority of the Athenian government. So, to backtrack, at Apology 29b Socrates claims to have no real knowledge of "what awaits us in Hades." If one compares this assertion to Socrates' detailed account of the afterlife in the Phaedo, then one must conclude either that what is said in the Phaedo is not "real

Category: Philosophy - S