Review: Phaedo — the last day, argument by argument
★★★★☆4.3 / 5.0 (editorial rating)
Verdict: the goal of this shelf. From dawn on the day of the execution to the final cup, Socrates spends his last hours arguing with his friends about the immortality of the soul. It is one of the summits of the Platonic dialogues and holds philosophy's quietest death scene. The story that began in the Apology is completed here — and Gallop's edition is built for reading it slowly.
- Title
- Phaedo (Oxford World's Classics)
- Author
- Plato, tr. David Gallop
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (original: 4th century BC)
- Length
- Primary source · ~180 pp. (text + introduction and notes)
- Difficulty
- Advanced ★★★ — the arguments demand time
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What it is — in three lines
399 BC, the day of the execution. In his cell, before his grieving friends, Socrates asks whether death is something a philosopher should fear, and spends his remaining hours building a series of arguments for the soul's immortality. The whole scene is narrated by Phaedo, who was there — a central work of Plato's middle period. This Oxford World's Classics edition pairs David Gallop's translation with an introduction and notes made for study.
The shape of the day
Morning: the chains struck off, friends gathered. First half: "philosophy is a training for death" — successive arguments for immortality stacked up. Middle: friends' objections nearly bring the whole case down. Later: the strongest argument, and a great myth of the soul's journey. Sunset: the cup.
— the editorial room's one-line map
The moment the argument almost collapses and is rebuilt is the design masterstroke. Plato does not hand you the conclusion to swallow; he hands you the whole process of doubt and reconstruction — Socratic method turned into the very structure of the work.
Three highlights
1. "Philosophy is a training for death"
The dialogue's famous formulation — that to philosophize is to practise separating the soul from the body's appetites — is the full development of the view of death sketched at the end of the Apology. Read it and the composure in the courtroom finally makes sense.
Those who practise philosophy in the right way are training for dying, and to them of all people death is least frightening.
— Plato, Phaedo 67e (editorial gloss of the Greek)
2. The warning against "misology"
When the argument falters, Socrates warns his friends not to come to hate argument itself — as people who are let down by others come to hate humanity. It is one of the finest moments in the dialogue, and it lands on our own age of soured debate without a word of adjustment.
3. The final scene
The pages after the cup is brought are written in a plain, unsentimental hand that has silenced readers for twenty-four centuries. Summary and commentary are helpless here — read them in the text.
What to watch out for
Honestly: the argument sections have real bone in them. Recollection, the theory of Forms, generation from opposites — if you arrive expecting the dramatic ease of the Apology, the jump in density will surprise you. Two defences. First, come only after the rest of this shelf — the reading order is built for exactly this. Second, this is where Gallop's edition earns its keep: the notes carry you through the hard passages, and if an argument stalls you, skip ahead to the death scene and circle back, since the Phaedo is designed as a story as much as a proof. One more honest note, the governing one for this site: this is Plato's Socrates, and by the middle dialogues the immortality arguments are widely read as Plato's own doctrine voiced through his teacher — the man on the last day and the philosophy he expounds are not simply the same thing.
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