The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Plato's Phaedo and Timaeus. Discussions on the Immortality or Infinity of the Soul

Highly Esteemed Attendees!

[ 1 ] At the center of the Platonic structure of ideas is Plato's discussion on the immortality of the soul, the "Phaedo". And this discussion is perhaps the most important of the Platonic discussions apart from the "Timaeus". It is a work which perhaps in the most eminent sense provides proof that in Plato we are dealing with "true mysticism", indeed with "theosophy". I must emphasize quite explicitly that we are dealing here with theosophy, even though the name is not applied to it. Nor can it be used because the name 'theosophy' has only been used in literature since the third century. Before that, everything was called 'philosophy'. So the logical part of theosophy was also philosophy. This was no different in Plato's time. The word 'philosophy' is as old as Pythagoreanism. The word 'theosophy', however, dates back to the third century.

[ 2 ] We know that this Platonic theosophy comes to light in the "Phaedo" in particular. This conversation, like the other conversations, is linked to Socrates. He is at the center of this conversation. Moreover, it is the innermost and most intimate circle of friends that gathers around Socrates. Therefore, it is probably also the most intimate thoughts that are expressed in it. The other conversations also take place between Socrates and a wider circle of friends. Therefore, much is spoken in a form that we need not take as the precise Platonic opinion, whereas in the Phaedo we actually have the deepest opinion [of Plato] before us. Moreover, this Phaedo ties in with one of the most significant historical moments, the death of Socrates. We are now led through philosophy from the conquest of life to the comprehensibility of death. When we then look at Dionysus, the god of pleasure, and what is said of him in the Phaedo, this is elevated in the Phaedo by the fact that we see that it is Socrates who is having this conversation immediately before his death. In the moments before he dies, he once again sets out his views on life and on overcoming life; he talks about the eternity of the soul. It is therefore a significant moment in which the conversation begins, so that we perhaps have to look for the most important thing that Plato believes he can tell us.

[ 3 ] When Socrates' pupils visit him in the dungeon and are on the verge of the sad event, some weep for him, while others say that he is dying the death of the wise man and should therefore not be mourned. But one thing we notice immediately is that a significant change has taken place with Socrates. Socrates is the turning point that drew wisdom out of spiritual life. We have seen that in the Mysteries there was the highest spiritual life, that they united religion, art and truth. Socrates was the one who strove only for the truth, who searched only for clear, pure concepts.

[ 4 ] The purpose of Socrates' dealings with his students was to reduce everything to clear, pure concepts. This is why Socrates is portrayed to us throughout his life as not actually being a friend of poetry. This was combined with the art of singing and music. He was portrayed as a man who pursued the truth in a prosaic, sober form. Musicality was alien to him. Shortly before his death, however, he was musical. From this mood, he draws his pupils' attention to the fact that swans also sing before they die and that such an animal as a swan obviously only sings when it feels joy. So, he thinks, it will also be Socrates' turn to sing at the hour of death. Besides, he says, I have been singing all my life. Philosophy is the expression of the deepest tones in the world. So, having sung my own work throughout my life, at the end of life I may well sing as other people have sung.

[ 5 ] This is the conversation that Socrates had with his students. It is significant that Socrates gets into a singing mood shortly before his death. I would like to point out that all those who imbue themselves with this kind of wisdom have the same basic feeling. I would like to refer to Goethe's Faust poem. Worry also approaches "Faust. It makes him blind. But it also makes him see inwardly. That which the eyes are throughout their entire life, [namely] seeing, Faust becomes inwardly in the end. This view that in the hour before death Socrates does the same thing that other people before him have done throughout their lives is the same basic feeling as when Goethe lets Faust become what the others have been throughout their lives. This is expressed as the basic tone that runs through the entire "Phaidon"

[ 6 ] One should not believe that Platonic philosophy, with its knowledge of the sensory world, must necessarily abhor sensory life in an ascetic manner or glide beyond sensory life to an unreal beyond. This cannot be the case. Plato does not want to destroy the life of the senses immediately, because he wants to transition from the life of the senses to the life of the pure spirit.

[ 7 ] This is also not what Platonism strives for. It does not lead to ascetic renunciation, but by allowing people to look into the hereafter, it only leads them to a different illumination of the sensory world. It is rather like imagining the hereafter as a dark twilight realm, as a gloomy vault. No light shines into this vault for those who have not awakened supersensible powers within themselves. But the moment they are awakened, the light of eternity shines into the sensory world. We must not assume that we are distracted by the sensory world. No, it "only appears in a new light. "Only I say. It is only said to those who believe that it disappears. No, it will be completely retained and will only appear in a new light.

[ 8 ] Now we have to ask ourselves: Where does it actually come from that, in the sense of Platonism, we have to distinguish between the "finite sensory world" and the "infinite spiritual world", between the "eternal" and the "temporal" world? The difference is there in the material world. If [this difference] also existed for an infinite faculty of perception, then perhaps Platonism could not be understood, because the question would then eternally arise: How do the two worlds, the spiritual and the sensory world, relate to each other?

[ 9 ] This world of the spiritual would itself have to become finite if it still had one next to it, if it were not able to dissolve it into itself. For Plato, the separation between the sensory and spiritual worlds only exists in the human being within the human faculty of perception. It only exists for the human soul. It would not exist for a soul which had reached the end, which had perfected its perceptive faculty to such an extent that it was able to survey the whole universe. It is only because the human soul is enclosed between two potencies, because it participates in part in forces below and above it, that the human soul has a perceptive faculty which it must divide into the sensual-material and the spiritual world. Such dualism is only possible for a person who has not reached higher levels.

[ 10 ] Because we are on the material level, we all carry two world potencies within us, we carry two forces within us, that force of will, that Promethean nature, which tends to become one with the Logos; that is the Promethean striving. The other is the striving downwards, it is the striving of Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus. What we can overlook is the nature of Epimetheus, is the non-spiritual nature in us, is that which lies within us as the [reflective], the explanatory. Prometheus is the [thinking ahead], the one who looks to a higher level. If we were to imagine a seven-part path and if we were to think of the path from the material to the spiritual as passing through all the stages, we would have to imagine this striving as a Promethean one. And if we looked back, we would have to describe this as the force that is presented to us in the Greek imagination as Epimetheus.

[ 11 ] Suppose that we had all reached the highest stage of development. For such beings, there would be no more Prometheus. We would all be transformed into "Epimetheus®. One could now ask: Is this the reason why Platonic-mystical philosophy has a dualism, assuming a world divided into a sensual and a spiritual part? It is not there for purely sensual beings, nor for those who have been identical with the divine being, but for those who are on the way there. Therefore, the way upwards and the way downwards must be given. These two perspectives are intertwined in Platonic philosophy. Those who do not understand Platonic philosophy in such a way that it regards man as changing will not be able to understand it, nor will those who regard it as self-contained if they fall into myth with a view to the immortal, if they want to extract the higher truths from the unconscious.

[ 12 ] We have to process the facts from knowledge, to determine them from reality. Science demands facts. But they only apply to those looking downwards. Man can only find facts as far and on the path he has traveled himself. At the point where man has now reached, he ceases to find anything beyond the sensual. For an animal, for example, there are only sensory perceptions.

[ 13 ] Man who advances through the third and fourth stages of life [of the seven-limbed path] is no longer limited to the sensual. When he gets beyond the fourth stage of life, he sees higher psychological truths. There he no longer has sensory perceptions, but spiritual ones. Only on the path below us do we perceive facts. But in that part into which we look only from below, which we have not yet passed through, which is not seen by us, which reveals its secrets to us only gradually from above, which flows into us, we can never be given such facts as those which lie on our path. These have to be put into the form of myth. And Plato puts them in such a form. This is the upward perspective. This is the reason why Plato switched to mythical representation in his most important works. And this reason is also present in the "Phaidon", the discussion about the immortality of the soul.

[ 14 ] Now I have already mentioned that Plato does not want to teach his intimate students about eternity in such a way that he provides them with evidence. It is not a question of providing logical proofs, but of leading them, as it were, to higher perceptions, leading them where they have not been before, leading them where they can see the world in a new splendor, in a new light.

[ 15 ] There we also have the method. We start with the simplest thing imaginable. Can we not already find something in our sensory world that could lead us further towards knowledge of the soul? Let's take a look at the sensory world around us. We do not see things around us that remain, but things that come into being and pass away. We see flowers that come into being, blossom and fade. We see an eternal becoming and passing away. This is characteristic of all of nature. We must therefore assume that this "becoming and passing away" runs through the entire universe. That which is germ before is fruit after. Because that which was previously dead is life, we are dealing with an eternal cycle.

[ 16 ] As it is with falling asleep and waking up, so we will also have to do in the higher, the actual spiritual spheres. It is no objection to say that what applies to the lower spheres need not apply to the higher spheres. It is very much a part of higher knowledge that what happens in the higher sensory world is only a reflection of the eternal, and we may well use it to illustrate what is going on in the world of the spiritual. This is particularly important for understanding Platonism. We must not imagine that it is as if Plato were rejecting or delimiting the sensory world, as if the non-sensory world were something quite different from the sensory world. That is not the case. We only need to illuminate the sensual world with the spiritual world. If we do this, then we can also see the images of the eternal.

[ 17 ] Plato used a comparative image. We know that when our eye is directed towards sensual objects, it only sees the passing images. Imagine people sitting in a cave. All the things that are real are behind the people. A source of light is also located behind people. People cannot turn around, they can only see what is happening on the opposite wall. So they do not see the objects themselves, because the light and the objects are behind them. But they see the shadows, and they also see the shadows of themselves.

[ 18 ] This is also the case with sensory perception. If we stop at sensory perception, we only see the world in sensory shadow images. We do not see ourselves as we are, we only see ourselves as shadow images. Only in the face of spiritual deepening, only when man is able to deepen into his inner self, only when man has attained this "know thyself", when he sees himself, does he become aware of the deeper basis of things.

[ 19 ] But the shadows are also part of reality. We must not imagine that the shadow is not real. No shadow will really move without the underlying real form having moved. What presents itself in the shadow realm is only a consequence of what takes place in the sensual and spiritual world. Anyone who understands the shadow images can also recognize the processes in the spiritual world in the sensory world. Every atom shows itself to him as an expression of the spiritual realm.

[ 20 ] In the same way, Plato was able to deduce from the eternal cycle of life the becoming and emergence of things, from the realm of the senses, from the shadow images, to the realm of the spirit. But now he has Socrates say: "This is correct. But let us look at things even more sharply and ask ourselves whether, when we direct the mind towards things, we can have no sensory perception, whether something eternal does not shine into our cognition in the subtlest way, in a shadowy manner. This argument is very correct. The materialists do not realize what difference there must be between animal perception and human perception. Although human perception is first dominated by animal perception, it is of such a nature that the spirit cannot be separated. Even in the coarsest human perception there is still a spiritual trace. And therefore the Platonic perception is also correct. When we perceive a trace of the spiritual, it means an "ascent to the spiritual". We could not ascend if the higher did not enter our sensory world.

[ 21 ] Plato has Socrates say: Consider, how can the number ‘2’ come about? — By adding one sensible thing to another. A union has taken place. Thus a ‘two’ has come into being. That is a union. The mind contemplates this joining by first counting ‘one’ and then ‘two.’ But the sensory process can also occur by my splitting the ‘one.’ I have then obtained the ‘two’ by taking the ‘one’ apart rather than joining it together.

[ 22 ] This is exactly the opposite way for sensuality. On the one side we have a joining together, on the other a splitting apart. But the result is the same when viewed from the spiritual realm. Sensory perception is something that can depict the spiritual in the most diverse ways. We can say: If man did not add a spiritual to the sensual, he would not regard anything in the sensual as the same. There would not be an equal for him if the sensual process were not exactly the same for him. Thus, for Plato, the spiritual shines into the sensual. But we cannot perceive whether the sensual shines into the spiritual. We must admit that even in the simplest processes, the spirit is at man's side in the sensory processes and that man therefore lives, carries out his life, through the fact that the spirit, even if only a spark at first, is present right into sensory perception.

[ 23 ] If we imagine the seven-part nature of man and the world being, they consist of pure matter and of what we call force, of what we call matter and of what we call spiritual, astral. But then there is also what is present in the animal, what we call the animating, the principle that animates matter. As the fourth link we then consider that which we find in the higher human being, and with this we have penetrated as far as the spirit without matter.

[ 24 ] So we must imagine with Plato that this spark of the spirit, which is also present in the lower man, goes from above to below. We have to imagine that on the one hand matter goes from bottom to top and on the other hand the spiritual goes from top to bottom, so that they interpenetrate and man becomes a double being through the interpenetration of the spiritual and the sensual. So when we examine the matter, we find in any case that the spiritual is present in man, even if only in the thinnest form - as in mathematics.

[ 25 ] If the soul can only grasp the spiritual at one end, then it can regard this beginning of the spirit as a guarantee that it has a share in the spiritual and thus in the eternal, because the spiritual is the eternal in relation to the material, because it is the permanent in relation to the existing, the lasting, because it always remains the same as the spiritual in the sensory world.

[ 26 ] For Plato, it is a matter of leading the students to where the spiritual, the eternal, is grasped at one end, and [then] leading them to the perception of the spirit in sensuality, so that [they] thereby [become] citizens of the infinite realm. This is what Plato tells us in his book. He has arrived at the point where he shows us how the spiritual enters into the sensual.

[ 27 ] An important objection of his students is this: If we imagine that we have the sensual in its multiplicity before us and that the soul has a share in the infinite, we can imagine something else entirely. We can imagine that the soul only appears to have a share in the infinite. Let us think of the manifoldness symbolized as a series of taut strings on the lyre. We can produce a harmony through the sounding together of the taut strings of the lyre. Perhaps it is also just a uniform, harmonious tone that is merely struck. But we are always dealing with a harmony.

[ 28 ] Socrates objects to this: Let's take a closer look. With harmony, shouldn't we say that the strings - each one individually - fit into the harmony, so that each individual string contributes to the harmony? Is this also the case with sensuality in the soul? Does it not have to go beyond sensuality? Harmony only exists in the parts and through the parts. But the soul must overcome the parts in their details if it wants to be a whole. And the essence of the soul lies in this ability to overcome the individual parts of multiplicity. The essence of the soul is therefore more than harmony. It is a life in itself. The spiritual life is not merely the harmony of the sensual, but something that is independent.

[ 29 ] And now Socrates makes a very important remark: we have now finished with harmony. Let us now see how it goes with the "Kadmos". - Now we are led back into the myth. It is interesting that it is precisely at this point that this myth comes into play. Theologians have wondered in many ways about the inclusion of this myth. Kadmos is the hero whose sister Europa is stolen by Zeus. [Zeus] did this in the form of a [bull]. So Kadmos followed the trail of an ox, came to Europe and founded the castle of Thebes. He brought the Greeks, the Thebans, the science of the Orient, the alphabet and also the spiritual content of the alphabet. We are then told that he married after he had founded Thebes and established the Greek order.

[ 30 ] Kadmos is the independently striving human being, the person who constantly strives for perfection. This is a trait that we also encountered in other figures of the gods. Harmonia, to which he wedded himself, is simply the harmony of the striving human being with the world. And when Socrates says that we are finished with harmonia, this has a meaning.

[ 31 ] We have seen that harmony is not the highest, but that higher is the independent comprehension within the harmony. So at this point we have gone beyond harmony. We are ascending to Kadmos. We can grasp this independence ourselves.

[ 32 ] And now Socrates is made aware of important objections by his students. Even if it is conceded that the soul is a harmony, it is not eternal. We must assume that a soul is alive in the face of sensual diversity. But this soul-life, even if it expresses much more personality in the earthly personality, does not have to be eternal, it can also be of temporal duration.

[ 33 ] In the image, in the relationship between "rock" and "man", we can imagine the relationship between "body" and "soul". We can also imagine that the skirt is changed once. Once the person dies, the skirt passes on to someone else. The skirt outlasts the person. It could be the same with the soul. It might also outlive the next sensual form, and another soul could take possession of this body. One could imagine that the soul is independent, but not of infinite duration.

[ 34 ] So we must also overcome this limited duration, we must show that we can find an independent entity within the human being, we must show that it is not just something that lasts for a shorter or longer time but is still temporary, but that it is the eternal that shines into the human being.

[ 35 ] Platonism provides this proof, albeit in a figurative sense, by saying that when we look at something in the sensory world, we are searching for a connection. His predecessor Anaxagoras always looked for causes. When a stone fell to the ground, he looked for the cause. If a stone was heated, he looked for the cause that heated it, the sun's rays or some other cause. But now he asks himself: Can we get by with that? Aren't we going round in circles if we look for the cause of every effect? Don't we have to acknowledge that we are actually claiming something of which the opposite can be just as true?

[ 36 ] He clarified this with an example. He asked himself: Why is this beautiful? Because it has a beautiful shape, a beautiful color and so on. So if we want to know: "Why is this thing beautiful", we come to the conclusion that it can be beautiful in different ways. It can be beautiful because of its color or because of its shape and so on. Therefore he says: All things are beautiful that are partakers of beauty. It is the same with goodness, greatness and other things. All things are partakers of imperishable, eternal ideas. What is beautiful today and what was beautiful millions of years ago are the same. They are the same ideas. They are in the same beauty. Therefore, there is a piece of the eternal in everything that is transient.

[ 37 ] We only need to ask ourselves: What communion does the transient have with the eternal? And then: How is man related to the eternal? And the answer arises: through what we call the soul in him and through the fact that he has something that distinguishes him in it. We have said: A thing is good if it is a partaker of goodness, a thing is beautiful if it is a partaker of beauty. What is it that makes us call the soul "soul"? Each thing excludes another. Let us take snow. Snow is part of the cold. When the fire gets to the snow, the snow is no more. Fire and snow are not compatible. Let us look for what remains in man when we separate out sensuality. Let us seek that which is present in man just as beauty is present in beauty, greatness in greatness and so on, let us seek in man that which is as incompatible with the transitory as fire is with snow. What we find there is life.

[ 38 ] The lifeless melts away before the primordial living just as the snow melts away before the fire. As a result, this spark of the infinite, which protrudes into the material, becomes in man what he recognizes as the actual soul principle. And so he must say to himself: This primal living is absolutely alive, is alive through and through, and therefore, because man is partaker of the living, he is also partaker of the eternal.

[ 39 ] This is the highest stage in the process of proof to which the Platonic Socrates ascends in the "Phaidon". First he tries to make it clear how we first have to deal with "spirit" in every sensual work. This must be grasped, and then we can have a view of the rest of the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] You might think it could be an illusion, a mere harmony. But now Socrates refutes the idea that we are dealing with a harmony and shows that we are not dealing with a harmony but with an independent entity, because it is not merely the harmony but the individual parts that are overcome. These can only be overcome by an independent entity.

[ 41 ] And now he asks about the independent entity and discovers that the independent entity is the primordial living being, which is as incompatible with the transient as fire is with snow. Therefore, we cannot speak of Kadmos as being temporary, but as a completely independent entity that shines in here, and we must assume that we are partakers of a real, infinite life.

[ 42 ] So Socrates leads his students step by step up to the primordial living, where he gives them what he has set out as wisdom as myth. He leads his students up to the ethereal heights of heaven and tries to describe how the earth would look if we were to view it from the ether. Wouldn't it look very different to us walking around on earth? Think of the inhabitants of the seabed. They live on the mud of the earth. Above that is the water, then the air of the earth. Now we can imagine the transformed human being who would be just as astonished as a deep-sea creature if it were to look at the seabed from the air. He shows you another possibility in a vividly intuitive form. He describes the underworld, the various rivers and so on. The soul will take a different course in the underworld; it will receive different treatment in the underworld. Some are immediately thrown into Tartarus. These are the ones who were bad, criminals. The others will be washed back onto the shore and can once again call upon those who have offended them and ask for forgiveness.

[ 43 ] The sensual image is less important. It is much more important when he says: It could be like this, but it could also be different. It is not an exoteric perception, but a visualization. It is nothing other than the reassurance of what has previously been achieved in me. In any case, the pictorial is completely justified by the preceding wisdom. If wisdom is to be visualized, then Plato leads over into myth. He allows a higher language to enter. This is the language of myth.

[ 44 ] So we see that this Platonic conversation about the eternity of the soul is basically an argument about the whole of Platonic mysticism. It is one of the most important works that Plato has left us, perhaps one of the most important that we have. It shows us what Plato actually wanted to give us: a philosophical-mystical image for the gradual perfection of man within the [path of knowledge], an image of how man ascends through the form to the seizure of the spirit and how man does not come to conviction by providing himself with logical proofs, but by understanding things himself.

[ 45 ] It is significant that Plato chose the form of conversation. This form is conditioned by the Platonic way of thinking, by the Platonic attitude. Plato is convinced that it is a matter of seeing spiritual, higher powers, and these must be developed through the word. The word is that which is the key to the spiritual: it is therefore also the word that compelled Plato to present the gradual capacity for perfection, the gradual capacity for development in the form of conversations that the teacher conducts with his pupils.

Questions And Answers:

[ 46 ] It is amusing to see how our philosophers stop at one point when interpreting Platonic philosophy. To a certain extent, Kühnemann realizes that it is a matter of education, of enlivening the soul, that immortality is still to be acquired through knowledge. He goes as far as the narratives that he can no longer control.

[ 47 ] Plato is a predecessor of Philo. I would like to develop Philo's late Platonic mysticism. We have a continuous rise of mysticism. With Philon, the mystical deepening was also the highest peak. This is also the basis for Christian mysticism, namely for the Gospel of John, and also leads to an understanding of the Apocalypse.

[ 48 ] With our division into seven, we are dealing with the end points as two opposite poles.

[ 49 ] The [Greek] letter writing ties in with Kadmos.

[ 50 ] In his "Philosophy of Revelation", Schelling created a "positive philosophy in contrast to the "negative philosophy of logic. He gave a philosophy of experience in contrast to merely conceived philosophy.

[ 51 ] The history of dogma is the further development of external myths in scientific form. Schelling was formally ridiculed here in Berlin. He had no success in Berlin in 1841. He died in 1854.