The Reciprocity Argument and the Structure of Plato's Phaedo

The Reciprocity Argument and the Structure of Plato's Phaedo KENNETH DORTER THERE IS A CURIOUS AMBIGUITY in the attitude generally taken toward the Phaedo. While it remains one of Plato's most popular dialogues, its ostensible theme--the arguments for the immortality of the soul--is given relatively little serious attention. It is often held that they are not only invalid if taken at face value, but were recognized as such by Plato, ~for he makes Socrates call attention to the inconclusiveness, or need for more thorough examination, of all of them? No doubt it is largely as a result of this belief that we are often urged to turn our attention from the logic of the arguments to the example of Socrates and his unshakable courage in the face of death. When serious attention is paid to the reasonings of the dialogue, it is generally with reference not to the doctrine of immortality but to the epistemological discussions that support it. The question naturally arises why Plato would bother knowingly to propound inconclusive or invalid arguments, and in answer it is usually suggested that he is aiming to produce "a series of 'aggressions' to the solution" of thc problem? demonstrating a certain probability or clarifying the issues involved. Yet it is left vague how this is accomplished in particular cases4 or, more importantly, how Plato can have hoped to accomplish such goals by means of invalid arguments. If Plato recognized the first three arguments to be invalid, or at least inconclusive, it is worth asking whether their value is merely to serve as stepping stones to the final argument, or whether they contain intrinsic merit as well. And if one believes that Plato regarded even the final proof as fallacious or inconclusive, the discovery of intrinsic merit in such arguments becomes the only alternative to seeing them as pointless. In what follows, I shall try to show that the first argument, which is most widely regarded as fallacious or inadequate in Plato's own eyes, not only serves as an E.g., John Burnet, Platok Phaedo (London: Oxford University Press,-1911), p. 47: R. S. Bluck, Plato~ Phaedo (New York: Bobbs-Merrill). p. 18 (he excepts the final argument); A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His" Work (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1956), p. 184; Paul Friedlander, Plato (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 3, 44; Jacob Klein, A Commentar3' on Plato's Meno (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965), p. 126. 267bl, 67b9, 77b-e, 80b10, 84c5-7, 85c7-e2, 91c3-5, 107a9-b6 3Taylor, p. 177. Recently David Gallop has interpreted them as "a developing sequence of arguments" in which "the earlier arguments are criticized, refined, or superseded, until Socrates" belief in immortality is finally vindicated" (Plato: Phaedol Oxford: Clarendon Press, 19751,p. 103). I agree in part, but this way of putting it suggests that by the end of the dialogue the last argument is the only one that counts, having surmounted the defects in the others: there is, however, reason to believe that the earlier arguments complement the later ones without being surpassed by them. Ill 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY important step in the overall design of the dialogue, but that it has intrinsic merit as well. I. (70c4-72a10) "Let us consider it in this way: whether the souls of deceased people are in Hades or not," Socrates begins. He remembers "an ancient account that souls exist there which have arrived from here, and, again, arrive and are born here from the dead. And if this is how things stand, can it be otherwise than that our souls exist there?" There are two features to this doctrine: souls of the deceased continue to exist and are subsequently reincarnated; and their separate existence is in "Hades," with all that implies. It is worth noting that the second of these features is never raised as a question but is simply taken to follow from the first. This is not question-begging, however: Socrates avoids directly confronting this feature of popular religion by reinterpreting Hades metaphorically to suit his position--Hades = the intelligible (80d6-7)--rather than by taking it in its traditional sense and...