The last enemy. On some receptions of Plato’s “Phaedo” in 18th-20th century philosophy and literature

Abstract

Plato?s ?Phaedo? has taken up its position in European culture primarily thanks to its philosophical arguments for the immortality of the soul and the statement that for a true philosopher it is not enough to be free from the fear of death: one should strive for it. Christian theology adjusted these views so that they correspond to biblical eschatology and reproduced them repeatedly. However, there have always been and still are Christian theologians (including Orthodox Christian ones) who deny Platonic dualism as a world-view completely alien to Holy Scripture. It should be noted that criticism of the ?Phaedo? was always wider than the metaphysical question of monism or dualism in the comprehension of human nature; it gave rise to a certain existential philosophy focusing on the attitude towards death. In the Old and New Testament, death is never represented as some wonderful liberation from bodily existence that a philosopher should strive for: it is always horrible. The author of the article considers this problem of attitude to death across three dimensions: metaphysical, phenomenological, and syntactic. Syntactically, death imparts a character of logical sequence to our life, turning the totality of ?atomic facts? into fate. The image of fate makes our existence in time meanin?gful, and therefore becomes an existential phenomenology of the finitude of our existence. But eternal life does not depend on time, it is neither ?before? nor ?after?, and, hence, it is here in every tiniest moment of the present. Thus, the ?syntax of fate? determines the phenomenology of death, and the phenomenology of death determines the metaphysics of Eternity.