Death is a recurrent theme in the thinking-philosophizing of Plato. There are, therefore, many ponderings on grief, mourning, sorrow, and healing in the dialogues philosophizing and thinking toward death and dying. The fear of death, Plato says, burdens humans while they are awake and haunts their dreams.
In the Apology, Socrates says that death could be one of two things: either it is a state in which there is nothing, no perception, and no recognition, or it is a transition through which the soul migrates to the other world, leaving behind the physical realm.
With regard to the first state, in which nothing takes place and nothing is perceived, death would be a “marvellous benefit” because human beings would be sleeping dreamlessly.
With regard to the second possibility, which is the migration of the soul to another realm, Socrates says that death would be also good because through this traveling to another non-physical realm the soul might find itself with other virtuous and divine souls.
Socrates says that if through dying the dead person becomes transported to a place where there are good people, blessed souls, and true judges, then he wishes “to die many times”.
Death as the Separation of the Soul From the Body
The Phaedo revolves around the view that death is “nothing other than the separation of soul from body”. That is, death renders apart the soul and the body. This migration of the soul to the other world, Socrates says, is a release, a freeing, of the soul of the philosopher, since it is the body that prevents the soul from acquiring wisdom because it is attached to the physical and constantly longs for physical pleasures.
The body renders impossible the attainment of wisdom by the soul. The philosopher thus welcomes and greets this liberating release, which takes place as a migration to the other world where there is no physicality. That is, the philosopher welcomes death because death frees the soul from the body and thus liberates it.
The welcoming of death by the philosopher should be linked together with Plato’s conviction that the soul is immortal and with his adherence to the forms as that on which goodness, existence, and knowledge are based.
According to Plato, after death, all souls will continue existing for a while. Two things, Plato says, determine and decide the lengths of the eternal lives of the souls after death: how knowledgeable the souls are of the forms and how virtuous they are.
The degree of the rationality of the soul will also determine how far it will be distanced from the physical body when the body dies. The soul that achieves total rationality will be totally separated from the physical. The entirely rational soul will thus reach its truest form in its absolute apartness from the physical. The truest form of the soul occurs when the soul reaches its complete immateriality in its complete separation from the physical.
For Plato, this separated-ness from the physical and its desires could also be achieved during human life through contemplation. Because the soul can separate itself from the physical even during human life by returning home to itself, Plato says that philosophizing is itself a practice of death.
Yet it is only death that makes possible a complete and perpetual apartness from the physical, for death allows the soul to finally have sustained and direct contact with the forms. Death allows the soul to return to its original condition, in which the physical does not exist, in which there is no physicality. The original condition of the soul is complete immateriality because of its infinite apartness from the physical.
The soul and the body are held together and tied to each other during life. Death disrupts and destabilizes this togetherness, and frees the soul. That is, death breaks up and dismantles the body and hence makes the togetherness of the body and the soul less firm so that the soul could be liberated.
This detaching of the soul from the body frees the soul and liberates it from the body. When the soul is freed and liberated from the body, it “flies away with pleasure”. The body, on the other hand, which is nothing but a “bulk of flesh” should be buried, and funerals, Plato says, should be modest.
Plato on Afterlife
Plato’s account of the afterlife is linked together with his views that the universe is just and the gods are good. Plato says that once the soul leaves behind the body and the physical realm, it will be either rewarded or punished.
What the mortals do while they are alive will be returned to them when they die. They will be either rewarded or punished. There is no escaping from this, Plato says.
The souls of the philosophers will be rewarded because their lives were dedicated in their entirety to contemplating the forms. The reward is that their souls will be allowed to completely leave behind the physical realm forever. The site into which the souls of the philosophers will be transported after their death is a site in which divinity, blessedness, and truth dwell.
The souls that are not as virtuous as the souls of the philosophers will not be able, or will not be allowed, to leave behind the physical realm. Such souls will be transferred into other bodies, living other lives, and hence undergoing many deaths. These souls will be punished when they leave their bodies and then they will be transferred into other bodies so that they could improve themselves during other lives.
This means that death, the event of dying, is always the same for all souls. The difference is what happens after death: either it is a complete detachment from the physical, toward and into the eternal and the immaterial, or it is a failure to leave the physical behind, which leads to many lives, bodies, and deaths.
The souls that are totally corrupt, that is, the souls that lack any virtue and cannot be cured will be separated from their bodies and punished, but they will not be transferred into other bodies and they will not be allowed to live other lives. That is, they will be forever separated from the physical and delivered into an afterlife of punishment.