INTRODUCTION . Nature and Purpose of the Present Study

INTRODUCTION . Nature and Purpose of the Present Study The ancient commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo offer a unique perspective on the study of Plato’s dialogue in late antiquity. Were it not for them, we would know very little about how ancient readers approached the text. Moreover, they throw an interesting light on broader subjects: the understanding of the philosophical life in the final phase of Greek Neo- platonism, and the significance which the doctrine of immortality held for the last Platonist thinkers in the ancient world. Yet,surprisingly, these commentaries have not benefited much from the revival of interest in the Platonic tradition in recent years, despite their relative accessibility in a highly praised edition.1 There are a number of possible reasons for this neglect. Their state of preservation does not encourage treating them as anything other than source material, and the loss of all prefatory material, which would have set out the general guidelines for interpretation, weighs heavily here. Of the commentaries by Olympiodorus and Damas- cius, furthermore, the one that is better preserved is, sadly, also the lesser in quality (Olympiodorus’); and while the sparse student notes taken from Damascius’ lecture courses do contain hints of doctrinal innova- tions, they are all too often silent about the reasoning that led to them. In this study, I hope to present and analyze the late Neoplatonic exe- gesis of Plato’s Phaedo by focusing on the issues of death and immortality. Like Plato’s Socrates, the Neoplatonists did not think that death was the end. They turned to Plato’s dialogues (especially Republic, Phaedo and Phaedrus) to find arguments that would suggest something of us survives, and survives everlastingly, the death of our bodies. This ‘something’ they identified with the rational human soul. But while it is one thing to know where an argument is supposed to lead, it is quite another to identify the relevant steps on the way, and to avoid the logical difficulties that critics of Plato in antiquity had not been slow to point out. One central part of my study, then, is to analyze the immortality arguments in the Phaedo 1 Westerink (–). introduction with the help of the Neoplatonic commentators. To understand the commentators’ perspective, it is first of all necessary to understand them as interpreting Plato’s text, and making the best sense of it they could. I shall therefore have to devote some time to particular problems in Plato’s arguments themselves, in order to explain how the commentators attempt to deliveranswers.Theresultsarenotinfrequentlysurprising,but,arguably, part of the interest in looking at ancient interpretations lies in detaching oneself from one’s own cherished beliefs about the problems in an argument or a stretch of text, and seeing what sort of challenges a reader with different metaphysical and hermeneutical assumptions will face when reading a particular Platonic dialogue.2 Yet Plato’s Phaedo is not about arguments alone. Any sympathetic reader of the dialogue will want to take into account, and take seriously, the ‘non-dialectical’ parts of it. By this I mean those parts that do not, ostensibly, provide arguments in favour of anything, such as the final myth, or that seem to be more concerned with the right way to pur- sue an ideal philosophic life than with giving rational justifications for the belief in immortality. Yet to divorce these parts from the rest of the dialogue would be a serious mistake, a mistake which the ancient commentators did not make. Having certain beliefs about death will also in one way or another entail certain beliefs about life. Therefore, the case for immortality is intimately tied up with two ethical questions: what is the right way for the philosopher to live and die, and what happens after death? In chapter one of this study, I shall look at the ancient commentators’ responses to Socrates’ view that philosophy is a ‘pursuit of death’, and his prohibition of suicide. Olympiodorus admits that suicide is gen- erally unlawful, but thinks it can be justified in special circumstances. Chapter two will outline how the commentators interpret Socrates’ ‘sec- ond defence’ speech (Phd. b–e), which describes the ideal philosopher’s way of life, who is above all concerned with separating himself from the body and all that belongs to it. The Phaedo,asitturnsout,is not only a dialogue about purification but also a dialogue for purification: the student who has read the ‘political’ dialogue Gorgias at the previous 2 On some methodological considerations that must be taken into account when reading ancient commentaries, see the classic article by P. Hadot (), and more recently Hoffmann (). See also Annas () for the relevance of ancient Platonism to modern Plato scholarship..

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