The body, while seemingly clearly definable and understandable, is a concept that humans have struggled to define and understand for much of history. Social conceptions of the mind of spirit shaped philosophers’ understandings of the relationship between the mind and body, as well as attitudes toward the body. In his essay “The Concept of the Body,” Eliot Deutsch presents readers with four popular modes of conceiving of the body. These models, popularized at different points throughout history, are the prison, the temple, the machine, and the instrument. Through reading Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, one gains perspective on Socrates’ conception of the body, as a prison. The body as a prison metaphor, as explained by Deutsch, is premised on the fundamental belief in a duality of mind and body. The metaphor, Deutsch writes, “is essentially a complaint which relates the awareness of the possibility of, and difficulty in attaining, pure rational consciousness” (Deutsch 6). The body, in this model, is seen as the principal hinderance to achieving knowledge of the purest form. Rather than aiding us in understanding the world through our senses, the body “drives us toward evil pleasures and desires” (Deutsch 6). In doing so, the body encumbers the mind/spirit’s efforts to reach its telos, or its final form. In Plato’s Phaedo readers are introduced to Echecrates and Phaedo of Elis.
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Echecrates, knowing that Phaedo was present in the moments leading to Socrates’ execution, pleads with him to recount his final conversation with Socrates. Phaedo notes that a number of Socrates’ friends were present in his cell including Crito and two Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cerbes. The group’s discussion begins with Socrates presenting a central theme of the text: that philosopher should look forward to death. Although he argues that suicide lacks a moral justification, Socrates maintains that the life of a philosopher is a preparation for death. He first claims that death is a release of the soul from the body. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha., 65b). In presenting this argument, Plato first illustrates Socrates’ assumption of a mind-body duality, one of the precursors to the body as a prison metaphor. In order for the body to be a prison, their must be a distinct entity serving as a prisoner. To Socrates, this entity is the soul. However, there are also slight elements of the body as an instrument metaphor present in Socrates statement regarding “the help of the body” implying a level of control possessed by the soul over the body. Nevertheless, Plato reveals Socrates’ primary understanding of the body as a prison when he states that “the soul can best reflect when it is free from all distractions such as hearing or sight or pain or pleasure of any kind” (Pha., 65c). This statement implies that the body only interferes with the soul’s ability to reflect and attain truth. This radical “anti-body” sentiment is justified by Socrates’ acceptance of the Theory of Forms, which proposes the existence of abstract
Echecrates, knowing that Phaedo was present in the moments leading to Socrates’ execution, pleads with him to recount his final conversation with Socrates. Phaedo notes that a number of Socrates’ friends were present in his cell including Crito and two Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cerbes. The group’s discussion begins with Socrates presenting a central theme of the text: that philosopher should look forward to death. Although he argues that suicide lacks a moral justification, Socrates maintains that the life of a philosopher is a preparation for death. He first claims that death is a release of the soul from the body. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha., 65b). In presenting this argument, Plato first illustrates Socrates’ assumption of a mind-body duality, one of the precursors to the body as a prison metaphor. In order for the body to be a prison, their must be a distinct entity serving as a prisoner. To Socrates, this entity is the soul. However, there are also slight elements of the body as an instrument metaphor present in Socrates statement regarding “the help of the body” implying a level of control possessed by the soul over the body. Nevertheless, Plato reveals Socrates’ primary understanding of the body as a prison when he states that “the soul can best reflect when it is free from all distractions such as hearing or sight or pain or pleasure of any kind” (Pha., 65c). This statement implies that the body only interferes with the soul’s ability to reflect and attain truth. This radical “anti-body” sentiment is justified by Socrates’ acceptance of the Theory of Forms, which proposes the existence of abstract