Phaedo, Socrates Asserts That the Physical Senses

¶ … Phaedo, Socrates asserts that the physical senses are a distraction to acquired pure knowledge. What reasons does Socrates give to justify this assertion? Did you find Socrates' argument on this point convincing? Why or why not? Was there anything that you read in the Phaedo that you found especially interesting, or that you did not completely understand?

The best way that we can understand Socrates' reason for seeing the physical senses as distraction is by understanding his underlying philosophy of Forms. To Socrates, every physical and conceptual element was a Form that was merely a mirage of eth Ideal within. The Ideal was contained within the Form, but beyond it, and the physical packaging of the Form occluded it. True happiness and Love can never consist of physical manifestation; it is always alluding to something beyond it - to the true eudemonia which is genuine, authentic bliss which is contained in the spirituality and intense pleasure of Pure Knowledge.

In the Phaedo, Socrates gives three reasons for the body, or materialism being a hindrance to pursuit of wisdom:

1. The senses are unreliable and deceptive. They trick the soul into believing that it can better achieve its happiness on this earth. They occlude the light of the soul (as Socrates showed in another place with people chained in a cave watching the dancing fire). They prevent her from gaining true knowledge and prevent the philosopher form reflecting. The soul can only gain freedom when she "dismissed the body" and is "as much alone with herself as possible" (65c).

2. One has to spend so much time satisfying one's natural physical desires such as eating and drinking to satisfy hunger and thirst. What a waste of time! (66c). In this way, too, our attention is distracted from seeing the Forms inherent in aspects such as the Just, the Beautiful, the Good, and "in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is" (65d). These Forms can be approached only by pure thought alone but sense perception obstructs us from seeing them / contemplating them.

3. Passion, desires, emotions, and fears introduced by the body lead it off course, swamp the human into irrational and indiscrete behavior leading to individual, national and global misery and conflict that frequently culminate in war and death: "It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body" (66c). The physical therefore is not only a hindrance to spirituality (i.e. pur knwoeldge) but may even destruct the human.

In this way, the philosopher should welcome death for he has shrugged himself off from distraction and will now have the opportunity to be in full correspondence with the delight of unvarnished and unclouded Pure Knowledge:

There are parts of Socrates' argument that I found convincing. We are often sidetracked by emotion that drives us into irrational and self-destructive acts. More so, we rationalize these emotions slanting them so that we believe they are for our good. Without our realizing it, however, we are oblivious to the fact that they are obverting us from seeing the Good of life, or factors of life, that may be so much more healthy and enriching for us. A person, for instance, may be in love with a toxic individual. She sacrifices her health, precious time, factors that should be important to her to pursue this unhealthy relationship. Emotion blinds her judgment. She is tricked by the senses into suicide of the soul and sometimes of the body.

On the other hand, materialism is not all that bad. Aspects such as food, money, sex are important stimuli for motivating us to achieve higher ends. This is the way we humans work, and we can use them for negative or positive. Yes, we have to monitor our emotions, but, on the other hand, natural physical desires may not be such a waste of time as Socrates posited.