The Rational Egoist

First, before I comment on this topic, I’d like to apologize to my readers (does anyone even read this thing?) about the lack of posts lately. I am a college student after all, and I have been quite busy.

In the course of my studying of philosophy, I am currently reading Plato’s Phaedo and I recently completed Plato’s Crito. In Phaedo, Phaedo (the narrator) recollects the discussion that Socrates had with his friends prior to being put to death. In Crito, Socrates discusses why he will obey the ruling to be put to death, even though he considers his death to be an injustice against him. I would like to elaborate on the views of Socrates and Plato in order to show you the disgusting nature of this philosophy which is still dominant today.

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher, in fact, one of the first Western philosophers in history. In the Athenian democracy of ancient Greece, Socrates was sentenced to death for espousing views which the State did not agree with. Specifically, he was charged with not believing in the gods of Greece (though it seems he believed in a different god) and with corrupting the youth of Athens.

After Socrates had been sentenced to death by the people of Athens, he was given the chance to escape the death penalty through exile from Athens. Socrates refused to disobey the ruling of the people of Athens on the grounds that it is unjust to disobey anything that the State commands, regardless of whether it is an injustice or not. Plato wrote about Socrates’ view on this issue in Crito:

…are you too wise to see that your country is worthier, more to be revered, more sacred, and held in higher honor both by the gods and by all men of understanding, than your father and your mother and all your other ancestors; and that you ought to reverence it, and to submit to it, and to approach it more humbly when it is angry with you than you would approach your father; and either to do whatever it tells you to do or to persuade it to excuse you; and to obey in silence if it orders you to endure flogging or imprisonment, or if it sends you to battle to be wounded or to die? That is just. [Emphasis added]

In Phaedo, the disgusting philosophy of Plato is evident in the account of Socrates’ discussion with his friends prior to his death.

As long as we have this body, and an evil of that sort is mingled with our souls, we shall never fully gain what we desire; and that is truth. For the body is forever taking up our time with the care which it needs; and, besides, whenever diseases attack it, they hinder us in our pursuit of real being. It fills us with passions, and desires, and fears, and all manners of phantoms, and much foolishness; and so, as the saying goes, in very truth we can never think at all for it. It alone and its desires cause wars and factions and battles; for the origin of all wars is the pursuit of wealth, and we are forced to pursue wealth because we live in slavery to the cares of the body. And therefore, for all these reasons, we have no leisure for philosophy. And last of all, if we ever are free from the body for a time, and then turn to examine some matter, it falls in our way at every step of the inquiry, and causes confusions and trouble and panic, so that we cannot see the truth for it. Verily we have learned that if we are to have any pure knowledge at all, we must be freed from the body; the soul by herself must behold things as they are. Then, it seems, after we are dead, we shall gain the wisdom which we desire, and for which we say we have a passion, but not while we are alive, as the argument shows. For if it be not possible to have pure knowledge while the body is with us, one of two things must be true: either we cannot gain knowledge at all, or we can gain it only after death.

In truth, then, Simmias, he said, the true philosopher studies to die, and to him of all men is death least terrible.”[Emphasis added]

These two dialogues, Crito and Phaedo clearly demonstrate the mysticism and altruism which is at the center of Plato’s philosophical thought. For refutation of the mysticism, collectivism, and altruism of Plato I refer you to the philosophical thought of Ayn Rand and Aristotle.