Logos and Psyche in the Phaedo
By (author) Jesse I. Bailey
Publication date:
19 January 2018Length of book:
242 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
236x161mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781498541305
This book offers an original interpretation and close reading of Plato’s Phaedo, focusing on the relation between logos and the soul in order to illuminate the ethical and political dimensions of philosophy as “care of the soul.” Jesse I. Bailey argues that the central issue of the dialogue is the relation between logos and the defining activity of the soul. The soul, in accord with logos, gathers the multiplicity of phenomena into the intelligible wholes of experience. This definitive activity also applies to the soul itself, as the soul gathers itself to itself in logos. Ethical living demands the development of a harmonious unity in the self through this activity. Thus, the book argues that the traditional “pillars” of Platonism—the immortality of the soul and the Forms—are presented not as fully-developed theories to be accepted by the reader whole cloth, but rather as provocations for thought.
Over the last few decades, there has been a revolution in Plato interpretation, and in Logos and Psyche in the Phaedo, Jesse Bailey draws on some of the best of this scholarship to produce an original interpretation of the Phaedo. Plato’s philosophy, in place of the simplistic, other-worldly cartoon that is typically ascribed to him, is shown to be subtle and complex and focused on the practical realities of shared human life. Focusing on the dramatic framing of the conversation, Bailey offers provocative new interpretations of all the major arguments of the Phaedo, challenging the standard idea that they are intended as proofs of personal immortality. His argument culminates in Chapter 6, “The Turn to Logos,” in which Bailey shows that it is how we take account of things—the tales we tell ourselves—and especially how we interpret what is good, that is what ultimately brings about the unity (or lack thereof) of the soul and of the things of our world. We live in an inherently human world—this the ultimate force of Socrates’ “second sailing.” Bailey does an excellent job of demonstrating that the Phaedo puts on display most powerfully the vulnerability and the humanity of Socrates, and shows his philosophy to be a focus on the inherent finitude of our human lives and on the good that is realized in and through the things of our world.