The Philosopher and Death

Socrates has sent Xanthippe away — she was weeping too loudly, and he has a different kind of day in mind. He settles with Cebes and Simmias and makes the claim that will anchor everything that follows. The true philosopher, he says, not only does not fear death but actively desires it. The others are uncertain whether to take this seriously. Surely those who think wisdom best must also think life best?

Socrates defines his terms. Death is the separation of soul from body. The body, he argues, is an obstacle to knowledge — it fills the soul with desires, passions, and confusions; it is always demanding attention; it clouds the mind precisely when the mind needs clarity. The soul is most itself when it withdraws from the body and thinks by itself, without sensory interference. Philosophy is the practice of this withdrawal — turning away from the body's pleasures and pains and toward what the soul alone can grasp.

If that is what philosophy is, then the philosopher has been rehearsing for death his whole life. Death — the final separation — is the completion of the practice. To fear it would be absurd. It would be as if someone who had spent years preparing for a journey refused to leave when the ship arrived. Simmias laughs at this, and Socrates allows it — but says the laugh is earned only if the argument is wrong, and the rest of the dialogue is devoted to showing it is not.