Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T02:23:07.370Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - The Philosopher’s Reward: Contemplation and Immortality in Plato’s Dialogues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2021

A. G. Long
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Get access

Summary

In dialogues ranging from the Symposium to the Timaeus, Plato appears to propose that the philosopher’s grasp of the forms may confer immortality upon him.  Whatever can Plato mean in making such a claim?  What does he take immortality to consist in, such that it could constitute a reward for philosophical enlightenment?  And how is this proposal compatible with Plato’s insistence throughout his corpus that all soul, not just philosophical soul, is immortal?  In this chapter, I pursue these questions by applying the distinction between general and earned immortality to the Phaedo and the Symposium.  I argue that, while Plato attributes general immortality to all souls in the Phaedo, he proposes in the Affinity Argument that the philosopher’s soul can achieve earned immortality through contemplating forms.  It is this form of immortality that Plato claims is unavailable to humankind in the flux passage of the Symposium.  At the same time, in the ascent passage, he holds out the possibility – albeit with significant reservations – that the philosopher’s soul may transcend its humanity and achieve earned immortality through its communion with the forms.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ademollo, F. 2018. “On Plato’s conception of change,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 55: 3583.Google Scholar
Annas, J. 1999. Platonic Ethics, Old and New. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Benardete, S. 1993. On Plato’s Symposium. Munich: Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung.Google Scholar
Bett, R. 1999. “Immortality and the nature of the soul in the Phaedrus,” in Fine (ed.): 425–49.Google Scholar
Bluck, R. S. 1955. Plato’s Phaedo. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brandwood, L. 1992. “Stylometry and chronology,” in Kraut (ed.): 90120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bury, R. G. 1932. The Symposium of Plato. Cambridge: Heffer & Sons.Google Scholar
Crombie, I. M. 1962. An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, vol. 1. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Destrée, P. and Giannopoulou, Z. (eds.) 2017. Plato’s Symposium: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dover, K. J. 1965. “The date of Plato’s Symposium,” Phronesis 10(1): 220.Google Scholar
Dover, K. J. 1987. Plato: Symposium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, G. (ed.) 1999. Plato II: Ethics, Politics, Religion and the Soul. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frede, D. and Reis, B. (eds.) 2009. Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, D. E. (ed.) 1984. Greek Poetry and Philosophy. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1975. A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hackforth, R. 1950. “Immortality in Plato’s Symposium,” The Classical Review 64: 43–5.Google Scholar
Harte, V. and Woolf, R. (eds.) 2018. Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jorgenson, C. 2018. The Embodied Soul in Plato’s Later Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, R. 1992a. “Introduction to the study of Plato,” in Kraut (ed.): 150.Google Scholar
Kraut, R. (ed.) 1992b. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lear, G. R. 2006. “Permanent beauty and becoming happy in Plato’s Symposium,” in Lesher et al. (eds.): 96123.Google Scholar
Lesher, J. H., Nails, D., and Sheffield, F. C. C. (eds.) 2006. Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception. Washington: Center for Hellenic Studies.Google Scholar
Lorenz, H. 2009. “Ancient theories of the soul,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/ancient-soul/Google Scholar
Luce, J. V. 1952. “Immortality in Plato’s Symposium: a reply,” The Classical Review 2: 137–41.Google Scholar
Morgan, M. L. 1990. Platonic Piety. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nehamas, A. 1999. Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nehamas, A. and Woodruff, P. 1989. Plato: Symposium. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Nightingale, A. 2017. “The mortal soul and immortal happiness,” in Destrée and Giannopoulou (eds.): 142–59.Google Scholar
Obdrzalek, S. 2010. “Moral transformation and the love of beauty in Plato’s Symposium,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 48: 415–44.Google Scholar
O’Brien, M. J. 1984. “Becoming immortal in Plato’s Symposium,” in Gerber (ed.): 185205.Google Scholar
Perry, J. (ed.) 2008. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Price, A. A. 2004. Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Quinton, A. 2008. “The soul,” in Perry (ed.): 5372.Google Scholar
Robinson, T. M. 1995 [1970]. Plato’s Psychology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Rowe, C. J. 1996. Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rowe, C. J. 1998. Plato: Symposium. Warminster: Aris & Phillips.Google Scholar
Sedley, D. N. 1999. “The ideal of godlikeness,” in Fine (ed.): 309–20.Google Scholar
Sedley, D. N. 2009. “Three kinds of Platonic immortality,” in Frede and Reis (eds.): 147–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. N. 2017. “Divinization,” in Destrée and Giannopoulou (eds.): 88107.Google Scholar
Sedley, D. N. and Long, A. 2011. Plato: Meno and Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sheffield, F. C. C. 2006. Plato’s Symposium: The Ethics of Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheffield, F. C. C. 2012. “The Symposium and Platonic ethics: Plato, Vlastos, and a misguided debate,” Phronesis 57(2): 117–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolf, R. 2004. “The practice of a philosopher,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 26: 97129.Google Scholar
Woolf, R. 2018. “Love and knowledge,” in Harte and Woolf (eds.): 80100.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×