Now Socrates puts his feet on the floor and begins an increasingly philosophical discussion.  First he talks about the ethics of suicide in connection with some teachings of the expatriate philosopher Philolaus of Croton in Italy, who was the teacher of Simmias and Cebes in Thebes.  The discussion moves to the question of whether there is an afterlife for the soul.  Socrates gives a series of arguments in favor of an afterlife, stressing the advantages of having a soul freed from the restrictions of the body.  He faces a series of increasingly difficult objections from Simmias and Cebes, but in the end seems to establish his thesis. 

            The Phaedo is a masterpiece of drama as Socrates attempts to defend the immortality of soul as the hour draws near for his execution.  The arguments, however, are Platonic, not Socratic.  The character Socrates draws on Plato’s Theory of Recollection as a foundational epistemological theory, on Plato’s Theory of Forms as a metaphysical theory, and on a theory of Reincarnation as a psychological theory.  All of this stands in stark contrast to the skeptical position Socrates takes in the Apology (see chs. 24.4, 25.7*) about not knowing whether death is a good or a bad thing. 

All the indications are that Plato uses the dramatic setting of Socrates’ last day to provide his own reflections on life, death, and immortality.  Moreover, Socrates in the Phaedo goes on to critique natural philosophy, giving a quasi-biographical report of his own early inquiries in the area, and to offer a sketch of what an adequate natural philosophy would be.  He also gets into a serious logical and methodological debate about the use of hypothesis in philosophy, recommending it as a way to test the truth of theories.  This method becomes important in Plato and in philosophy forever after, but it is very un-Socratic.  In the Socratic dialogues, Socrates always insists that his interlocutors say what they believe, disregarding what other people, even experts, say, and excluding hypotheses or suppositions.[10]  Finally, in the Phaedo Socrates offers a speculative cosmology and a speculative eschatology, in the tradition of natural philosophy and religious myth, respectively.  All of this goes far beyond the narrowly ethical discussions of the Socratic dialogues.

            Some scholars do accept Socrates’ statements about his early views on natural philosophy as biographical.  Indeed, they offer some confirmation of the report of Ion of Chios that Socrates studied with Archelaus the natural philosopher (see ch. 4.8, 4.9*), but without Ion’s statement, Plato’s treatment of Socrates’ forays into natural philosophy would be unconvincing.  In any case, the story Socrates tells in the Phaedo ties in so closely with Plato’s own call for a revisionary natural philosophy that its biographical value seems limited.   Because of the strongly Platonic character of the Phaedo argument, it is best to dismiss these philosophical passages from a consideration of Socrates’ final discussions.  That he had philosophical discussions seems plausible, and that he interacted with his friends and students much as he had on previous occasions is likely.  But what he said we do not know.  Plato is reported to have been sick on the day of the execution.  This may be true, or it may be a way of giving Plato the author editorial distance and poetic license to put his own psychological-epistemological-metaphysical-scientific-religious theories into his master’s mouth. 

[10].See Robinson 1953; Vlastos 1991: 107-131.