Socrates in the Phaedo: Knight of Faith

Published Spring ’05: Philosophy Today 49 (No. 2)

No, Socrates is the only person who solved the problem: he took everything, everything, with him to the grave.  Marvelous Socrates,... you kept the highest enthusiasm closed up airtight in the most eminent reflection and sagacity, kept it for eternity¾you took everything along.  Therefore the professors are disparagingly saying of you now¾O, Socrates!¾that, after all, you were only a personality, that you did not even have a system.

            Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers (IV 4303, 224)

There are indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many who carry the thyrsus but the Bacchants are few.

            Socrates in the Phaedo (69c-d)

I.          Introduction

            In this paper I seek to capture an image of Socrates, the “single individual,” as he exists in Plato’s Phaedo.  This existing Socrates, I shall conclude “unconcludingly,” is existentially analogous to the Abraham of Fear and Trembling, authored by Kierkegaard’s pseudonym  Johannes de Silentio; thus I hope to reveal Socrates in the Phaedo as a “Knight of Faith.”

            To this end I shall first consider the picture of Socrates rendered by Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus in Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments.  In fact these two works present two, existentially distinct Socrateses.  In the former Socrates represents an orthodox rendering of Plato’s epistemology of recollection; this Socrates is a Knight of Infinite Resignation but not of Faith.  In the latter, however, Climacus presents Socrates as an exemplar of “Religiousness A”¾“pagan” or “Socratic faith”¾as distinct from “Religiousness B,” which refers to Christian faith.  The pagan faith of Religiousness A is also the faith of Abraham, Fear and Trembling’s “Knight of Faith,” and, as I hope to indicate, of Socrates in the Phaedo. *

Thus I shall first give a brief account of Johannes Climacus's characterization of the Platonic and religious Socrateses, as set forth, respectively, in Fragments and Postscript.  Second I shall observe Socrates’s unconcluding argumentation in the Phaedo, from which we can infer the presence not of a Platonic “systematizer” but of an existing philosopher.  Third I shall extend my consideration of the Phaedo to include its more poetic elements in order to flesh out this existing Socrates.  Finally, I shall compare the existential postures of Socrates and Abraham in order to justify each as a Knight of Faith.

On Violence, East and West: Gandhi’s Satyagraha with Reference to Augustine and Kant (And a Postscript on ‘Just War’)

Published in The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society, XII, 1: Spring/Summer 2003
Presented St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery Lenten Dialogues : 3 April 2003

I.          The Wellspring of Violence

II.        East Meets West

III.       Kant on “The Good Will”

IV.       Gandhi on Violence

V.        Postscript: On “Just War”

            “I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction,” says Gandhi, “and, therefore, there must be a higher law than that of destruction” (Gandhi 383).  “My opinion is becoming daily more and more confirmed that we shall achieve our real freedom only by effort from within, i.e., by self-purification and self-help, and therefore by the strictest adherence to truth and non-violence.  Civil disobedience needs and asks for stout hearts with a faith that will not flinch from danger and will shine the brightest in the face of severest trial.” (68-9).  He says also, “To bear all kinds of tortures without a murmur of resentment is impossible for a human being without the strength that comes from God.  Only in His strength are we strong.” (364-5).

            Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violent non-cooperation, his method for replacing violence with love, he terms satyagraha-- literally “clinging to truth.”  To practice it we must first recognize that the wellspring of violence is the heart, and that its nature consists in our separation from truth.  By turning our hearts from their origin we separate ourselves from each other and from ourselves and fall victim to violence: as for Plato, the act of injustice injures the actor more than the victim (Gorgias).  To overcome violence we must reconnect with ourselves, with our histories, traditions and communities, and with God: we must cling to truth.  To root out violence from our hearts is the precondition for satyagraha, which seeks to overcome the separation of means and ends which, Gandhi insists, is the root of all violence: violent means invariably produce violent ends, a violent act instigates or perpetuates a destructive cycle that only love can break. 

            We shall begin by rooting ourselves in our own tradition by invoking the personal discovery of the wellspring of violence by a 4th Century African Bishop, Augustine of Hippo, which will lead us directly into the issue of separation.  Next we shall begin to consider how to achieve connection with ourselves and with others by comparing Eastern and Western perspectives.  We shall then turn to Immanuel Kant’s “good will” as a description of the personal condition for overcoming evil and violence.  With this background we shall turn to Gandhi’s understanding of the rootedness of violence in the heart and how he would have us overcome personal separation to achieve the connection necessary to a peaceful community.  Finally, having considered the evil of violence on an individual level, as a function of the heart, we shall conclude by considering the communal violence of war and the claim that a war can be “just.”