thanatos / θάνατος / θάνατον / mortem / θνητός / thnetos / θνητοί / thnetoi / mortalis / athanatos / ἀθάνατος / immortalitas / ἀθανασία / athanasia / ἀθάνατον / immortalis / athanatizein / ἀθανατίζειν

On his dying day, Socrates   warns us against misology (Phaedo 89d-e). We may be tempted to hate reason because it seems to dissolve our dearest hopes—our desire for immortality, our will to be. Fighting misology, Socrates builds up his friends’ confidence by contriving arguments for the immortality of the soul. Yet after his last   argument and before his last myth, he warns that his “first hypotheses need to be examined more clearly” (107b). And in fact, the final argument for immortality is specious. It proves that the soul is athanatos, “deathless” (105e)—but only in the sense that a soul is essentially alive as long as it exists, not   in the sense that a soul can never cease to be. Reason fails to guarantee Socrates’ survival. So why is Socrates still a friend of reason? [McNeillGE]