THE ATHENS OF SOCRATES 2

Socrates 

苏格拉底

Among those who served in the Athenian heavy infantry was Socrates the son of Sophroniscus, who was thirty-eight when the war began. He was present at three of the important battles in the earlier years of the war and won a reputation for bravery. 

在雅典重步兵中服役的人中有一位是Sophroniscus之子苏格拉底，他在战争开始时已经三十八岁了。他参加了战争早期的三场重要战役，并赢得了勇敢的声誉。

Back in Athens in 406, he held office in the Assembly at a time when a group of generals was put on trial for abandoning the bodies of the dead at the sea-battle of Arginusae. It was illegal to try the generals collectively rather than individually, but Socrates was the only person to vote against doing so, and they were executed. 

回到406年的雅典，他在议会中担任职务，当时一群将军因为在阿尔吉努萨海战中弃尸而受审。集体审判而非单独审判将军是非法的，但苏格拉底是唯一反对这样做的人，而他们被处决了。

When the war ended in 404, the Spartans replaced the Athenian democracy with an oligarchy known as the Thirty Tyrants, who instituted a reign of terror. Socrates was ordered to arrest an innocent man, but disregarded the order. He would soon pay the price of the uprightness which had made him unpopular now with both democrats and aristocrats. 

当战争在404年结束时，斯巴达人用一个被称为三十暴君的寡头政治取代了雅典的民主制度，他们实行了一场恐怖统治。苏格拉底被命令逮捕一个无辜的人，但他无视了命令。他很快就要为他的正直付出代价，这使他现在在民主派和贵族派中都不受欢迎。

Socrates’ importance in the development of philosophy is such that all the philosophers we have considered hitherto are lumped together by historians under the title ‘Pre-Socratics’. Yet he left no written work, and the details of his life, apart from its main dramatic events, remain obscure, a subject of controversy among scholars. He did not lack biographers, and indeed many of his contemporaries and successors wrote dialogues in which he took the leading part. The difficulty is to sort out sober fact from admiring fiction. His biographers all tell us that he was shabby and ugly, pot-bellied and snub-nosed; but agreement goes little further than that. The two authors whose works survive intact, the military historian Xenophon and the idealist philosopher Plato, paint pictures of Socrates which differ from each other as much as the picture of Jesus given by St Mark differs from that given by St John. 

苏格拉底在哲学发展中的重要性是如此之大，以至于我们迄今为止所考虑过的所有哲学家都被历史学家归为“苏格拉底之前”的哲学家。然而，他没有留下任何书面作品，除了他生活中的主要戏剧性事件之外，他的生平细节仍然模糊不清，是学者们争论的话题。他并不缺乏传记作者，事实上，他的许多同时代人和后继者都写了对话，其中他扮演了主导角色。困难在于如何从虚构的褒扬中分辨出明确的事实。他的传记作者都告诉我们，他衣衫褴褛，丑陋不堪，肚子大鼻子扁；但除此之外，他们几乎没有什么一致之处。两位作品完整保存下来的作者，军事史学家泽诺芬和理型论哲学家柏拉图，描绘了苏格拉底的形象，这些形象彼此之间的差异就像圣马可给出的椰丝的形象与圣约翰给出的形象的差异一样大。

In his lifetime, Socrates was mocked by the comic dramatist Aristophanes, who portrayed him as a bumbling and corrupt eccentric, pursuing scientific curiosities with his head literally in the clouds. But rather than a natural philosopher, Socrates seems to have been a sophist of an unusual kind. 

在他的一生中，苏格拉底被喜剧作家阿里斯托芬嘲笑，他把苏格拉底描绘成一个笨拙而腐败的怪人，追求科学的奇闻异事，头脑里充满了空想。但苏格拉底似乎不是一个自然哲学家，而是一种不寻常的智者。

Like the sophists, he spent much of his time in discussion and debate with rich young men (some of whom came to positions of power when oligarchy replaced democracy). But unlike others he charged no fees, and his method of education was not to instruct but to question; he said that he drew out, like a midwife, the thoughts with which his young pupils were pregnant. Unlike the sophists he made no claim to the possession of any special knowledge or expertise. 

像其他智者一样，他花了很多时间和富有的年轻人讨论和辩论（其中一些人在寡头政治取代民主制度时获得了权力）。但他不像其他人那样收取费用，他的教育方法不是教导而是质疑；他说他像一个助产士一样，把他的年轻学生孕育的思想助产出来。不像其他智者，他没有声称拥有任何特殊的知识或技能。

In classical Greece great attention was paid to the oracles uttered in the name of the god Apollo by the entranced priestesses in the shrine of Delphi. When asked if there was anyone wiser than Socrates, a priestess replied that there was no one. Socrates professed to be puzzled by this oracle, and questioned, one after another, politicians, poets, and experts claiming to possess wisdom of various kinds. None of them were able to defend their reputation against his crossquestioning, and Socrates concluded that the oracle was correct in that he alone realized that his own wisdom was worth nothing. 

在古希腊，人们非常重视在德尔斐神庙中被神魂附体的女祭司以阿波罗神的名义发出的神谕。当有人问是否有比苏格拉底更智慧的人时，一位女祭司回答说没有。苏格拉底声称对这个神谕感到困惑，并一个接一个地质问那些声称拥有各种智慧的政治家、诗人和专家。他们没有一个能够抵挡住他的盘问，苏格拉底得出结论，神谕是正确的，因为只有他自己意识到自己的智慧一文不值。

It was in matters of morality that it was most important to pursue genuine knowledge and to expose false pretensions. For according to Socrates moral knowledge and virtue were one and the same thing. Someone who really knew what it was right to do could not do wrong; if anyone did what was wrong, it must be because he did not know what was right. No one goes wrong on purpose, since everyone wants to lead a good life and thus be happy. Those who do wrong unintentionally are in need of instruction, not punishment. This 26 remarkable set of doctrines is sometimes called by historians ‘The Socratic Paradox’. 

在道德问题上，追求真正的知识和揭露虚假的骗术是最重要的。因为根据苏格拉底的说法，道德知识和美德是一回事。一个真正知道什么是正确的人不会做错事；如果有人做了错误的事，那一定是因为他不知道什么是正确的。没有人故意做错事，因为每个人都想过好生活，从而快乐。那些无意中做错事的人需要的是教导，而不是惩罚。这套引人注目的教义有时被历史学家称为“苏格拉底悖论”。

Socrates did not claim to possess himself the degree of wisdom which would keep him from wrongdoing. Instead, he said that he relied on an inner divine voice, which would intervene if ever he was on the point of taking a wrong step. Authorities who disagree about the content of Socrates’ teaching agree about the manner of his death. The enemies whom he had made by his political probity, and his gadfly-like puncturing of reputations, ganged together to bring against him, at the age of seventy, a series of capital charges, accusing him of impiety, the introduction of strange gods, and the corruption of Athenian youth. Plato, who was present at his trial, wrote, after his death, a dramatized version of his speech in his defence, or Apology. 

苏格拉底没有声称自己拥有能够使他免于做错事的智慧水准。相反，他说他依赖于一种内在的神圣之声，如果他即将迈出错误的一步，这种声音就会干预。对苏格拉底教导内容有分歧的权威们却对他死亡的方式达成了一致。他因为自己的政治清廉和犀利揭穿虚假而结下的仇敌们联合起来，在他七十岁时，对他提出了一系列死刑指控，指责他不敬神、引入奇怪的神灵和腐化雅典青年。柏拉图在他的审判中在场，在他死后写了一个戏剧化的版本，作为他的辩护演说，或者说《苏格拉底辩护篇》。

His accuser, Meletus, claims that he corrupts the young. Who then are the people who improve the young? In answer Meletus suggests, first, the judges, then the members of the legislative council, then the members of the assembly, and finally every single Athenian except Socrates. What a surprising piece of good fortune for the city’s young people! Socrates goes on to ask whether it is better to live among good men than among bad men? Anyone would obviously prefer to live among good men, since bad men are likely to do him harm; if so he himself can have no motive for corrupting the young on purpose, and if he is doing so unwittingly, he should be educated rather than prosecuted. 

他的控告者迈雷托士声称他腐化了年轻人。那么，是谁在改善年轻人的状况呢？作为回答，迈雷托士先是提到了法官，然后是立法委员会的成员，接着是大会的成员，最后是除了苏格拉底以外的每一个雅典人。这对城市的年轻人来说是多么令人惊讶的好运气啊！苏格拉底继续问，与坏人相处比与好人相处更好吗？任何人显然都更喜欢与好人相处，因为坏人可能会伤害他；如果是这样，他自己就没有故意腐化年轻人的动机，如果他是无意中这样做的，他应该受到教育而不是起诉。

Socrates turns to the charge of impiety. Is he being accused of atheism, or of introducing strange gods? The two charges are not consistent with each other; and in fact, Meletus seems to be confusing him with Anaxagoras who said the sun was made of stone and the moon of earth. As for the charge of atheism, Socrates can reply that his mission as a philosopher was given him by God himself, and his campaign to expose false wisdom was waged in obedience to the Delphic oracle. 

苏格拉底转向不敬神的指控。他是被指控为无神论者，还是引入奇怪的神灵？这两个指控是不一致的；事实上，迈雷托士似乎把他和阿那克萨哥拉混淆了，后者说太阳是由石头组成的，月亮是由土壤组成的。至于无神论的指控，苏格拉底可以回答说，他作为一个哲学家的使命是由上帝亲自赋予他的，他揭露虚假智慧的运动是服从于德尔斐神谕的。

What would really be a betrayal of God would be to desert his post through fear of death. If he were told that he could go free on condition of abandoning philosophical inquiry, he would reply, ‘Men of Athens, I honour and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy’. 

真正背叛神的事情将是因为害怕死亡而放弃自己的使命。如果有人告诉他，只要放弃哲学探究，他就可以自由地走，他会回答说，“雅典人啊，我尊敬并爱你们；但我将服从神而不是你们，只要我还有生命和力量，我就永远不会停止哲学的实践和教导。”

Socrates concludes his defence by pointing to the presence in court of many of his pupils and their families, none of whom has been called on to testify for the prosecution. He refuses to do as others and produce in court his weeping children as objects of compassion: at the hands of the judges he seeks justice and not mercy. 

苏格拉底以指出法庭上许多他的学生和他们的家人的存在来结束他的辩护，他们中没有一个被要求为控方作证。他拒绝像其他人那样，在法庭上展示他哭泣的孩子，作为同情的对象：在法官的权柄下，他寻求的是正义而不是怜悯。

When the verdict was delivered, he was condemned by a slender majority of the 501 judges. The prosecution called for the death penalty; it was for the accused to propose an alternative sentence. Socrates considered asking for an honourable pension, but was willing to settle for a moderate fine – one too large for him to pay himself, but which Plato and his friends were willing to pay on his behalf. The judges regarded the fine as unrealistically small, and passed sentence of death. 

当判决结果宣布时，他被501名法官中的微弱多数判处有罪。控方要求判处死刑；被告则要提出一个替代的刑罚。苏格拉底考虑过要求卑微而低薪的降职 处罚，但他愿意接受一个适度的罚款——对他自己来说数目太大了，但柏拉图和他的朋友们愿意代他支付。法官们认为罚款太小，不切实际，于是判处了死刑。

In his speech after sentence, Socrates told the judges that it would not have been difficult for him to frame a defence which would have secured acquittal; but the kind of tactics required would have been beneath him. ‘The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death’. 

在被判决后发表演说时，苏格拉底告诉法官们，如果他想要构造一个能够使自己无罪释放的辩护并不困难；但那种所需的策略对他来说太卑鄙了。“我的朋友们，最难的事情并不在于避免死亡，而在于避免不义；因为那比死亡跑得更快。”

Socrates, old and slow, has been overtaken by the slower runner; his sprightly accusers have been overtaken by the faster. During the trial his divine voice has never once spoken to him to hold him back, and so he is content to go to his death. 

苏格拉底，一个年老而不机智的人，被更慢的跑者所超越，这是不义或不公正的隐喻。年盛力强的控告者，他们聪明而雄辩，被更快的跑者所超越，这是死亡或命运的隐喻。在审判期间，他的神圣之声，也就是他的内在指引或良心，从未警告他停止或改变他的行动方向，所以他满意地接受他的死亡是神的旨意。

Is death a dreamless sleep? Such a sleep is more blessed than most nights and days in the life of even the most fortunate mortal. Is death a journey to another world? How splendid, to be able to meet the glorious dead and to converse with Hesiod and Homer! ‘Nay. if this be true, let me die again and again.’ He has so many questions to put to the great men and women of the past: and in the next world no one will be put to death for asking questions. ‘The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.’ 

死亡是一种无梦的睡眠吗？这样的睡眠比即使是最幸运的凡人生活中的大多数夜晚和日子都更加幸福。死亡是一次前往另一个世界的旅行吗？多么壮观啊，能够遇见荣死亡是一次前往另一个世界的旅行吗？多么壮观啊，能够遇见荣耀的亡者，和赫西俄德和荷马交谈！“不，如果这是真的，让我一次又一次地死去吧。”他有那么多问题要向过去的伟大男女提出：在来世，没有人会因为提问而被处死。“离别的时刻到了，我们各走各的路——我去死，你们去活。哪个更好，只有神知道。”

After the trial portrayed in the Apology, there was a delay before sentence of death was carried out. A sacred ship had set out on its annual ceremonial voyage to the island of Delos, and until it returned to Athens the taking of human life was taboo. Plato has represented these days between condemnation and execution in a pair of unforgettable dialogues, the Crito and the Phaedo. No one knows how much in these dialogues is history, and how much invention; but the picture which they paint has fired the imagination of many who lived centuries and millennia after Socrates’ death. 

在《苏格拉底辩护篇》中描绘的审判之后，执行死刑之前有一段延迟。一艘神圣的船出发了，进行它的一年一度的仪式性航行，到德洛斯岛去，直到它返回雅典，才能够夺取人的生命。柏拉图用一对令人难忘的对话，即《克里托篇》和《费多篇》，来表现这些被判决和执行之间的日子。没有人知道这些对话中有多少是历史，有多少是虚构；但他们所描绘的画面激发了许多在苏格拉底死后几个世纪和几千年后生活的人的想象力。

Before considering these works, we should turn to a short dialogue, the Euthyphro, which Plato situates immediately before the trial. However fictional in detail, this probably gives a fair picture of Socrates’ actual methods of discussion and cross-examination. 

在考虑这些作品之前，我们应该转向一部短篇对话，《尤提弗罗篇》，柏拉图把它安置在审判之前。无论细节上有多少虚构，这可能给了我们一个公正的画面，关于苏格拉底实际的讨论和盘问的方法。

Socrates, awaiting trial outside the courthouse, meets young Euthyphro from Naxos, who has come to bring a private prosecution. Euthyphro’s father had apprehended a farm-labourer who had killed a servant in a brawl; while sending to Athens for an authoritative ruling about his punishment, he had had him tied up and thrown into a ditch, where he died of hunger and exposure. The son had now come to Athens to prosecute a charge of murder against his father. 

苏格拉底，在法院外等待审判，遇见了来自纳克索斯岛的年轻人尤提弗罗，他来提起一项私人起诉。尤提弗罗的父亲曾经逮捕了一个农场工人，他在一场争吵中杀死了一个仆人；在派人去雅典寻求一个权威的裁决关于他的惩罚时，他让他被捆绑起来并扔进了一个沟里，在那里他死于饥饿和暴露。儿子现在来到雅典，控告他父亲谋杀。

The case is obviously intended by Plato to be a difficult one: did the father really kill the labourer? If he did, is killing a murderer really murder? If it is, is a son a proper prosecutor of a father? But Euthyphro has no doubts, and regards 28 his action as the performance of a religious duty. The case provides the setting for a discussion between Socrates and Euthyphro on the relation between religion and morality. The nature of piety, or holiness, is of keen interest to Socrates who is himself about to stand trial on a charge of impiety. So he asks Euthyphro to tell him the nature of piety and impiety. 

这个案件显然是柏拉图故意设计的一个困难的案件：父亲真的杀了那个工人吗？如果他杀了，杀一个凶手真的是谋杀吗？如果是，一个儿子是不是一个合适的对父亲起诉的人？但尤提弗罗没有任何疑问，他认为他的行为是履行宗教义务的表现。这个案件为苏格拉底和尤提弗罗之间关于宗教和道德之间的关系的讨论提供了背景。虔诚或圣洁的本质对苏格拉底来说非常有兴趣，因为他自己即将因为不敬神而受审。所以他要求尤提弗罗告诉他虔诚和不敬神的本质。

Piety, replies Euthyphro, is doing as I am doing, prosecuting crime; and if you think I should not take my father to court, remember that the supreme god Zeus punished his own father, Cronos. Socrates expresses some distaste for such stories of conflicts between the gods, and takes a while to ascertain that Euthyphro really believes them. But his real difficulty with Euthyphro’s account of piety or holiness is that it merely gives a single example, and does not tell us what is the standard by which actions are to be judged pious or impious. 

虔诚，尤提弗罗回答说，是像我所做的一样，起诉犯罪；如果你认为我不应该把我父亲告上法庭，那就记住，至高无上的神宙斯惩罚了他自己的父亲克洛诺斯。苏格拉底对这些关于神之间的冲突的故事表示了一些厌恶，花了一段时间来确定尤提弗罗真的相信它们。但他对尤提弗罗关于虔诚或圣洁的说法的真正困难是，它只给出了一个例子，并没有告诉我们判断行为是虔诚还是不敬神的标准是什么。

Euthyphro obliges with a definition: holiness is what the gods love, and unholiness is what they hate. 

尤提弗罗给出了一个定义：圣洁是神所爱的，不圣洁是神所恨的。

Socrates points out that, given the stories about quarrels between the gods, it may not be easy to secure a consensus about what the gods love; if something is loved by some gods and hated by others, it will turn out to be both holy and unholy. Such may be the case with Euthyphro’s own action of prosecuting his father. But let us waive this, and amend the definition so that it runs: what all the gods love is holy, and what all the gods hate is unholy. A further question arises: do the gods love what is holy because it is holy, or is it holy because the gods love it? 

苏格拉底指出，鉴于关于神之间争吵的故事，要达成关于神所爱的东西的共识可能不容易；如果有些东西被一些神所爱，而被另一些神所恨，它就会变成既圣洁又不圣洁。尤提弗罗自己起诉他父亲的行为可能就是这样的情况。但让我们放过这个，改正这个定义，让它变成：所有神都爱的东西是圣洁的，所有神都恨的东西是不圣洁的。一个进一步的问题出现了：神之所以爱圣洁的东西，是因为它是圣洁的，还是因为神爱它而使它成为圣洁的？

In order to get Euthyphro to grasp the sense of this question, Socrates offers a number of examples which turn on points of Greek grammar. His point could be made in English by saying that in a criminal case, ‘the accused’ is so called because someone accuses him; it is not that people accuse him because he is the accused. Now is the holy, similarly, so called because the gods love it? Once he understands the question, Euthyphro rejects it: on the contrary, the gods love what is holy because it is holy. 

为了让尤提弗罗理解这个问题的意义，苏格拉底提供了一些基于希腊语语法要点的例子。他的观点可以用英语这样说：在一个刑事案件中，“被告”之所以这样称呼，是因为有人指控他；不是因为他是被告，人们才指控他。那么，圣洁的东西，同样地，之所以这样称呼，是因为神爱它吗？一旦他理解了这个问题，尤提弗罗拒绝了它：相反，神之所以爱圣洁的东西，是因为它是圣洁的。

Socrates now slyly offers ‘godly’ as an abbreviation for ‘what is loved by the gods’. Since Euthyphro maintains that holiness and godliness are the same, we can substitute ‘godly’ for ‘holy’ in Euthyphro’s thesis that what is holy is loved by the gods because it is holy. We get this result:

(A) The godly is loved by the gods because it is godly 

On the other hand it seems clear that 

(B) The godly is godly because it is loved by the gods since ‘godly’ was introduced precisely as a synonym for ‘loved by the gods’. 

苏格拉底现在狡猾地提出“神圣”作为“被神所爱的东西”的缩写。既然尤提弗罗坚持认为圣洁和神圣是一样的，我们可以用“神圣”来代替“圣洁”，在尤提弗罗的论题中，即被神所爱的东西之所以被神所爱，是因为它是圣洁的。我们得到这样的结果：

（A）神圣的东西之所以被神所爱，是因为它是神圣的。

另一方面，似乎很清楚

（B）神圣的东西之所以是神圣的，是因为它被神所爱，因为“神圣”正是“被神所爱”的同义词。

Socrates claims to have reduced Euthyphro to inconsistency, and urges him to withdraw his claim that godliness and holiness are identical. 

苏格拉底声称他已经把尤提弗罗归谬到了不一致的地步，并敦促他撤回他关于神圣和圣洁是相同的说法。

Euthyphro in the dialogue concedes that his definitions have not turned out as he wished. We may well think, however, that he should have stood his ground, and pointed out that Socrates was equivocating with the word ‘because’, using it in two different senses. If we say that the godly is the godly because it is loved by the gods, we are talking about the word ‘godly’; the ‘because’ invokes our stipulation about its meaning. If we say that the gods love the holy because it is holy, the ‘because’ introduces the motive of the gods’ love, and we are not talking about the meanings of words. In fact, once we realize the ambiguity of ‘because’ there is no conflict between (A) and (B). The point can be made in English by pointing out that it is true both that 

（C） A judge is a judge because he judges (that is why he is called a judge); and also that （D） A judge judges because he is a judge (he does it because it is his job). 

对话中的尤提弗罗承认他的定义没有达到他的期望。然而，我们可能会认为，他应该坚持自己的立场，并指出苏格拉底在使用“因为”这个词时有歧义，用了两种不同的意义。如果我们说神圣的东西是神圣的，因为它被神所爱，我们是在谈论“神圣”这个词；“因为”引出了我们对它的意义的规定。如果我们说神之所以爱圣洁的东西，是因为它是圣洁的，“因为”引入了神之爱的动机，我们不是在谈论词语的意义。事实上，一旦我们意识到“因为”的歧义，（A）和（B）之间就没有冲突了。这一点可以用英语来说明，既是真的

（C）一个法官是一个法官，因为他审判（这就是他被称为法官的原因）；也是真的

（D）一个法官审判，因为他是一个法官（他这样做是因为这是他的工作）。

So Euthyphro should not have been checkmated so easily. However, even if Socrates was persuaded to agree that there was nothing inconsistent in saying that what is holy is loved by the gods because it is holy, he could still go on to say, as he does in the dialogue, that even if that is so, being loved by the gods is only something that happens to what is holy: it does not tell us the essential nature of holiness in itself. 

所以尤提弗罗不应该那么容易地被驳倒。然而，即使苏格拉底被说服同意说圣洁的东西之所以被神所爱，是因为它是圣洁的，并没有什么不一致的地方，他仍然可以继续说，正如他在对话中所做的那样，即使是这样，被神所爱只是发生在圣洁的东西身上的一件事：它并没有告诉我们圣洁本身的本质特征。

Instead of godliness, should holiness be identified with justice? Socrates and Euthyphro agree that holiness seems to be only one part of justice, and Euthyphro suggests that it is justice in the service of the gods, rather than justice in the service of humans. Socrates latches onto the word ‘service’. When we take care of horses, or dogs, or oxen, we do them various services which improve their condition. Can we in a similar way do services to the gods? Can we make them any better than they are? Euthyphro points out that servants do not necessarily aim to improve their masters by serving them, but simply to assist them in their work. What then, Socrates asks, is the gods’ work, in which we can offer service? 

与其说是神圣，不如说是圣洁应该与正义相等同吗？苏格拉底和尤提弗罗同意，圣洁似乎只是正义的一部分，尤提弗罗建议，它是为神服务的正义，而不是为人服务的正义。苏格拉底抓住了“服务”这个词。当我们照顾马、狗或牛时，我们为它们提供了各种服务，改善了它们的状况。我们能否以类似的方式为神提供服务？我们能否使他们比他们现在更好？尤提弗罗指出，仆人们并不一定是为了通过服侍他们而改善他们的主人，而只是为了帮助他们完成他们的工作。那么，苏格拉底问，神的工作是什么，我们可以在其中提供服务？

Euthyphro is unable to reply, and falls back on a definition of holiness as divine service in the form of prayer and sacrifice. 

尤提弗罗无法回答，退回到以祈祷和牺牲的形式作为神圣服务的圣洁定义。

So then, Socrates says, holiness is giving things to the gods in the hope of getting something back from them; a kind of trade. But a trader can only hope to strike a bargain by offering his customer something which he needs or wants; so we must ask what good the gods gain from our gifts? Euthyphro cannot answer except by falling back on his earlier claim that holiness is something which the gods love. He refuses to take the discussion further, and hastens on to his self-appointed task. 

那么，苏格拉底说，圣洁就是给神一些东西，希望从他们那里得到一些东西；一种交易。但一个商人只有通过提供他的顾客需要或想要的东西才能希望达成一笔交易；所以我们必须问，神从我们的礼物中得到了什么好处？尤提弗罗除了退回到他早先的说法，即圣洁是神所爱的东西之外，无法回答。他拒绝进一步讨论，并匆匆赶往他自己指定的任务。

The Euthyphro probably gives a realistic picture of the strengths and weaknesses of Socrates’ methods of cross-examination. It also, whether this was Plato’s intention or not, enables us to understand why religious folk in Athens might in good faith regard Socrates as a danger to the young and a purveyor of impiety. 

《尤提弗罗篇》可能给出了一个关于苏格拉底盘问方法的优缺点的现实的画面。它也使我们能够理解，无论这是否是柏拉图的意图，在雅典的宗教人士为什么可能会真诚地认为苏格拉底是对年轻人的危险和不敬神者的传播者。

The Crito

《克里托篇》

The Crito is a much easier dialogue to read. Socrates is now in prison, waiting for the execution of his sentence. A number of his friends, led by Crito, have devised a plan for him to escape and flee to Thessaly. The plan had a good chance of success, but Socrates would have no part in it. Life was only worth striving for if it was a good life; and life purchased by disobedience to the laws was not a life worth living. Even if he has been wronged, he should not render evil for evil. But in fact he has been condemned by due process, and he should remain obedient to the law. 

《克里托篇》是一部更容易阅读的对话。苏格拉底现在在监狱里，等待着他的判决执行。他的一些朋友，由克里托领导，为他设计了一个逃跑并逃往色萨利的计划。这个计划有很大的成功机会，但苏格拉底不想参与。生命只有在是美好的生活时才值得追求；而用违抗法律的方式换来的生命不是值得活的生命。即使他受到了不公正的对待，他也不应该以恶报恶。但事实上，他已经被正当的程序判决了，他应该继续服从法律。

Socrates imagines the laws of Athens addressing him. ‘Did we not bring you into existence? By our aid your father married your mother and begat you.’ We also commanded your father to educate you in body and mind. ‘Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more precious and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor? . . . Having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us, the laws, when he has become of age and seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him.’ 

苏格拉底想象着雅典的法律对他说话。“难道不是我们让你存在吗？在我们的帮助下，你父亲娶了你母亲，生了你。”我们还命令你父亲在身体和心灵上教育你。“像你这样的哲学家难道没有发现，我们的国家比母亲或父亲或任何祖先都更珍贵、更高贵、更神圣吗？……我们把你带到这个世界上，养育和教育你，并给你和每一个公民分享我们所能给予的一切美好，我们还向任何雅典人宣告，凭借我们给予他的自由，如果他不喜欢我们，法律，当他成年并看到城市的道路，并与我们相识时，他可以去他想去的地方，并带走他的财物。”

By remaining in Athens continuously through his long life Socrates has entered into an implied contract that he will do as the laws command. By refusing at his trial to accept exile rather than death, he has renewed that commitment. Will he now, at the age of seventy, turn his back on the covenants he has made and run away? ‘Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first; for if you leave the city, returning evil for evil and breaking the contracts you have made with us, our brethren, the laws in the world below, will give you no friendly welcome.’ Crito has no answer and Socrates concludes, ‘Let us fulfil the will of God and follow whither he leads’. 

通过他漫长的一生不断地留在雅典，苏格拉底已经进入了一个暗示的契约，他将按照法律的命令行事。通过在他的审判中拒绝接受流放而不是死亡，他已经更新了那个承诺。他现在，七十岁了，会背弃他所做的契约，逃跑吗？“不要先想生命和孩子，然后再想正义，而是先想正义；因为如果你离开这个城市，以恶报恶，破坏你和我们所做的契约，我们的兄弟，下面的世界的法律，不会给你友好的欢迎。”克里托没有回答，苏格拉底总结说，“让我们履行神的旨意，跟随他所引导的地方。”

The Phaedo 

《斐多篇》

The dialogue with which Plato concludes his account of Socrates’ last days is called the Phaedo, after the name of the narrator, a citizen of Parmenides’ city of Elea, who claims, with his friends Simmias and Cebes, to have been present with (Naples, Museo Nazionale; photo: Alinari Archives, Florence) Socrates at his death. The drama begins as news arrives that the sacred ship has returned from Delos, which brings to an end the stay of execution. Socrates’ chains are removed, and he is allowed a final visit from his weeping wife Xanthippe with their youngest child in her arms. After she leaves, the group turns to a discussion of death and immortality. 

柏拉图用这部对话结束了他关于苏格拉底最后几天的叙述，它被称为《斐多篇》，以叙述者的名字命名，他是帕门尼德斯的城市埃利亚的一个公民，他声称和他的朋友西米亚斯和塞贝斯一起，在苏格拉底死时在场。戏剧开始于消息传来，神圣的船从德洛斯返回，这结束了执行的停留。苏格拉底的锁链被解开，他被允许最后一次拜访他哭泣的妻子桑西皮，她怀里抱着他们最小的孩子。在她离开后，这群人转向了关于死亡和不朽的讨论。

A true philosopher, Socrates maintains, will have no fear of death; but he will not take his own life, either, even when dying seems preferable to going on living. We are God’s cattle, and we should not take ourselves off without a summons from God. Why, then, ask Simmias and Cebes, is Socrates so ready to go to his death? 

一个真正的哲学家，苏格拉底坚持，不会害怕死亡；但他也不会自杀，即使死亡看起来比继续活着更好。我们是神的牲畜，我们不应该在没有神的召唤的情况下离开自己。那么，西米亚斯和塞贝斯问，苏格拉底为什么这么愿意去死呢？

In response Socrates takes as his starting point the conception of a human being as a soul imprisoned in a body. True philosophers care little for bodily pleasures such as food and drink and sex, and they find the body a hindrance rather than a help in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. ‘Thought is best when the mind is gathered into itself, and none of these things trouble it – neither sounds nor sights nor pain, nor again any pleasure – when it takes leave of the body and has as little as possible to do with it.’ So philosophers in their pursuit of truth continually try to keep their souls detached from their bodies. But death is the full separation of soul from body: hence, a true philosopher has, all life long, been in effect seeking and craving after death. 

作为回应，苏格拉底以一个人作为一个被囚禁在身体里的灵魂的概念为出发点。真正的哲学家对身体的快乐，如食物、饮料和性，不太在乎，他们认为身体是追求科学知识的障碍而不是帮助。“当心灵聚集在思想里面，这是最好的，没有这些东西困扰它——既没有声音，也没有视觉，也没有痛苦，也没有任何快乐——当它离开身体，并尽可能少地与它有关时。”所以哲学家在追求真理的过程中，不断地试图让他们的灵魂脱离他们的身体。但死亡是灵魂和身体的完全分离：因此，一个真正的哲学家，在他一生中，实际上一直在寻求和渴望死亡。

Hunger and disease and lust and fear obstruct the study of philosophy. The body is to blame for faction and war, because the body’s demands need money for their satisfaction, and all wars are caused by the love of money. Even in peacetime the body is a source of endless turmoil and confusion. ‘If we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body – the soul by itself must behold things by themselves: and then we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers – wisdom; not while we live but, as the argument shows, only after death.’ A true lover of wisdom, therefore, will depart this life with joy. 

饥饿、疾病、欲望和恐惧阻碍了哲学的研究。身体应该为纷争和战争负责，因为身体的需求需要金钱来满足，所有的战争都是由对金钱的爱所引起的。即使在和平时期，身体也是无尽的动荡和混乱的源泉。“如果我们想要对任何事物有纯粹的认识，我们必须摆脱身体——灵魂本身必须直接观察事物本身：然后我们才能得到我们所渴望的，我们所说的我们是爱好者的东西——智慧；不是在我们活着的时候，而是，正如论证所显示的，只有在死后。”因此，一个真正的智慧之爱者，会欢喜地离开这个生活。

So far, it is fair to say, Socrates has been preaching rather than arguing. Cebes brings him up short by saying that most people will reject the premiss that the soul can survive the body. They believe rather that on the day of death the soul comes to an end, vanishing into nothingness like a puff of smoke. ‘Surely it requires a great deal of proof to show that when a man is dead his soul yet exists, and has any strength or intelligence.’ So Socrates proceeds to offer a set of proofs of immortality. 

到目前为止，公平地说，苏格拉底一直在说教而不是在辩论。塞贝斯让他停下来，说大多数人会拒绝灵魂可以存活于身体之外的前提。他们相信，在死亡的那一天，灵魂就结束了，像一缕烟一样消失得无影无踪。“要证明一个人死了，他的灵魂还存在，并且有任何力量或智慧，肯定需要很多的证据。”所以苏格拉底继续提供一系列关于不朽的证明。

First, there is the argument from opposites. If two things are opposites, each of them comes into being from the other. If someone goes to sleep, she must have been awake. If someone wakes up, he must have been asleep. Again, if A becomes greater than B, then A must have been less that B. If A becomes better than B, then A must have been worse than B. Thus, these opposites, greater and less, plus better and worse, just like sleeping and waking, come into being from each other. 

首先，有来自对立面的论证。如果两件事物是对立的，每一件都是从另一件产生的。如果有人准备去睡觉，她一定是醒着的。如果有人醒来了，他一定是刚刚睡着了。同样，如果A变得比B大，那么A一定比B小。如果A变得比B好，那么A一定比B差。因此，这些对立面，大和小，好和坏，就像睡眠和清醒一样，都是从彼此产生的。

但死亡和生命是对立的，这里也必须如此。那些死去的人，显然是那些曾经活着的人；我们难道不应该得出这样的结论，死亡之后是生命吗？既然死后的生命是看不见的，我们必须得出结论，灵魂生活在另一个世界之下，也许会在某一天回到地球上。 

But death and life are opposites, and the same must hold true here also. Those who die, obviously enough, are those who have been living; should we not conclude that dying in its turn is followed by living? Since life after death is not visible, we must conclude that souls live in another world below, perhaps to return to earth in some latter day.

第二个论证试图证明一个没有身体的灵魂的存在，不是在它在身体中的生命之后，而是在之前。证明分为两步：第一，苏格拉底试图证明知识是回忆；第二，他强调回忆涉及先前存在。 

The second argument sets out to prove the existence of a non-embodied soul not after, but before, its life in the body. The proof proceeds in two steps: first, Socrates seeks to show that knowledge is recollection; second, he urges that recollection involves pre-existence.

论证的第一步是这样的。我们不断地看到大小或多或少相等的东西。但我们从来没有看到两块石头或木头或其他物质的东西是绝对相等的。因此，我们对绝对相等的概念不能从经验中得出。我们看到的大约相等的东西只是让我们想起绝对相等，就像一幅画像可能让我们想起一个不在场的爱人一样。 

The first step in the argument goes like this. We constantly see things which are more or less equal in size. But we never see two stones or blocks of wood or other material things which are absolutely equal to each other. Hence, our idea of absolute equality cannot be derived from experience. The approximately equal things we see merely remind us of absolute equality, in the way that a portrait may remind us of an absent lover.

第二步是这样的。如果我们被提醒了某件事，我们必须事先知晓它。所以如果我们回忆起了绝对相等，我们必须以前遇到过它。但我们没有在我们现在的生活中用我们普通的视觉和触觉这样做。

The second step is this. If we are reminded of something, we must have been acquainted with it beforehand. So if we are reminded of absolute equality, we must have previously encountered it. But we did not do so in our present life with our ordinary senses of sight and touch.

所以我们必须在纯粹的理智上，在我们出生之前的一个以前的生命中曾经认识过——除非，不太可能地，“绝对相等”的知识是在我们出生的那一刻注入到我们身上的。如果这个论证对绝对相等的概念有效，它同样适用于其他类似的概念，如绝对善和绝对美。 

So we must have done so, by pure intellect, in a previous life before we were born – unless, improbably, we imagine that the knowledge of equality was infused into us at the moment of our birth. If the argument works for the idea of absolute equality, it works equally for other similar ideas, such as absolute goodness and absolute beauty.

苏格拉底承认，这个第二个论证，即使成功地证明了灵魂在出生之前就存在，也不会显示它在死后存活，除非它被第一个论证加强。所以他提出了一个第三个论证，基于可溶性和不可溶性的概念。 

Socrates admits that this second argument, even if successful in proving that the soul exists before birth, will not show its survival after death unless it is reinforced by the first argument. So he offers a third argument, based on the concepts of dissolubility and indissolubility.

如果某物能够溶解和分解，就像身体在死亡时那样，那么它必须是某种复合的和可变的东西。但灵魂所关心的对象，如绝对平等和美，是不可改变的，不像我们用身体的眼睛看到的美，它们会褪色和衰败。可见的世界不断地变化；只有不可见的东西保持不变。不可见的灵魂只有当被拖拽，通过身体的感官，进入流动的世界时，才会发生变化。 

If something is able to dissolve and disintegrate, as the body does at death, then it must be something composite and changeable. But the objects with which the soul is concerned, such as absolute equality and beauty, are unchangeable, unlike the beauties we see with the eyes of the body, which fade and decay. The visible world is constantly changing; only what is invisible remains unaltered. The invisible soul suffers change only when dragged, through the senses of the body, into the world of flux.

在那个世界里，灵魂像一个醉汉一样摇摇晃晃；但当它回到自己里面时，它就进入了纯洁、永恒和不朽的世界。这是它所属的世界。

Within that world, the soul staggers like a drunkard; but when it returns into itself, it passes into the world of purity, eternity, and immortality. This is the world in which it is at home.

“灵魂是神圣、不朽、理性、统一、不可分解和不可改变的最近似之物，而身体是人类、可朽、非理性、多形态、可溶解和可改变的最近似之物。”因此，苏格拉底总结说，身体容易分解，而灵魂几乎完全不可溶解。如果即使身体，在埃及被木乃伊化后，可以存活很多年，那么灵魂在死亡的那一刻溶解和消失就完全不可能了。 

 ‘The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and rational, and uniform, and indissoluble and unchangeable, and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and irrational, and multi-form, and dissoluble, and changeable.’ Hence, Socrates concludes, the body is liable to dissolution, while the soul is almost totally indissoluble. If even bodies, when mummified in Egypt, can survive for many years, it must be totally improbable that the soul dissolves and disappears at the moment of death.

The soul of the true philosopher will depart to an invisible world of bliss. But impure souls, who in life were nailed to the body by rivets of pleasure and pain, and are still wedded to bodily concerns at the moment of death, will not become totally immaterial, but will haunt the tomb as shadowy ghosts, until they enter the prison of a new body, perhaps of a lascivious ass, or a vicious wolf, or at best, a sociable and industrious bee. 

真正哲学家的灵魂将离开到一个看不见的幸福世界。但不纯洁的灵魂，在生活中被快乐和痛苦的铆钉钉在身体上，并且在死亡时仍然与身体的事情结合在一起，将不会变得完全无形，而是会像阴影般的幽灵一样出没在墓地里，直到他们进入一个新身体的监狱，也许是一个淫荡的驴子，或者一个邪恶的狼，或者最好是一个友好而勤奋的蜜蜂。

Simmias now undermines the basis of Socrates’ argument by offering a different, and subtle, conception of the soul. Consider, he says, a lyre made out wood and strings. The lyre may be in tune or out of tune, depending on the tension of the strings. 

西米亚斯现在通过提供一个不同的，微妙的灵魂的概念，破坏了苏格拉底论证的基础。想想看，他说，一把由木头和弦组成的琴。琴可能是调好了音或者没调好音，这取决于弦的紧张度。

A living human body may be compared to a lyre that is in tune, and a dead body to a lyre out of tune. Suppose someone were to claim that, while the strings and the wood were gross material composites, being in tune was something which was invisible and incorporeal. Would it not be foolish to argue that this attunement could survive the smashing of the lyre and the rending of its strings? Of course; and we must conclude that when the strings of the body lose their tone through injury or disease, the soul must perish like the tunefulness of a broken lyre. 

一个活着的人体可以比作一把调好了音的琴，而一个死去的身体可以比作一把没调好音的琴。假设有人声称，虽然弦和木头是粗糙的物质组合，但旋律是一种看不见的、无形的东西。那么，主张这种旋律能够在琴被打碎和弦被撕裂时存活下来，难道不是愚蠢吗？当然是；我们必须得出结论，当身体的弦因为受伤或疾病而失去了旋律时，灵魂必须像一把破碎的琴的旋律一样消亡。

Cebes too still needs convincing that the soul is immortal, but his criticism of Socrates is less radical than that of Simmias. He is prepared to agree that the soul is more powerful than the body, and need not wear out when the body wears out. 

塞贝斯也仍然需要说服灵魂是不朽的，但他对苏格拉底的批评不像西米亚斯那样激进。他准备同意灵魂比身体更强大，而且不会在身体磨损时磨损。

In the normal course of life, the body suffers frequent wear and tear and needs constant restoration by the soul. But may not the soul itself eventually come to die in the body, just as a weaver, who has made and worn out many coats in his lifetime, may die and be survived by the last of them? 

在正常的生活过程中，身体经常遭受磨损，并需要灵魂不断地恢复。但灵魂本身最终不也可能在身体里死去吗？就像一个织工，在他一生中制作和穿坏了许多外套，可能死去并被最后一件外套所继承？

Even on the hypothesis of transmigration, a soul might pass from body to body, and yet not be imperishable but eventually meet its death. So, concludes Simmias, ‘he who is confident about death can have but a foolish confidence, unless he is able to prove that the soul is altogether immortal and imperishable’. 

即使在转世的假设下，一个灵魂也可能从一个身体转移到另一个身体，但它并不是不可毁灭的，而是最终会遇到死亡。所以，西米亚斯总结说，“不害怕死亡的人，只能有愚蠢的信心，除非他能够证明灵魂是完全不朽和不可毁灭的。”

In response to Simmias, Socrates first falls back on the argument from recollection which required the soul’s pre-existence. This is quite unintelligible if having a soul is simply having one’s body in tune; a lyre has to exist before it can be tuned. More importantly, being in tune admits of degrees: a lyre can be more or less in tune. But souls do not admit of degrees; no soul can be more or less a soul than another soul. 

为了回应西米亚斯，苏格拉底首先回到了要求灵魂先前存在的回忆的论证上。如果拥有灵魂只是让自己的身体协调，这是完全不可理解的；一把琴必须在它被调音之前就存在。更重要的是，调音是有程度的：一把琴可以或多或少地调音。但灵魂不是有程度的；没有一个灵魂可以比另一个灵魂更多或更少地是一个灵魂。

One might say that a virtuous soul was a soul in harmony with itself: but if so, it would have to be an attunement of an attunement. Again, it is the tension of the strings which causes the lyre to be in tune, but in the human case the relationship is the other way round: it is the soul which keeps the body in order. Under this battery of arguments, Simmias admits defeat. 

有人可能会说，一个善良的灵魂是一个与自己和谐的灵魂：但如果是这样，它就必须是一个调音的调音。再者，是弦的紧张度使琴调音，但在人类的情况下，关系是相反的：是灵魂使身体保持秩序。在这一系列的论证下，西米亚斯承认失败。

Before answering Cebes, Socrates offers a long narrative of his own intellectual history, leading up to his acceptance of the existence of absolute ideas, such as absolute beauty and absolute goodness. 

在回答塞贝斯之前，苏格拉底提供了他自己的智力历史的一个长篇叙述，导致他接受了绝对观念的存在，如绝对美和绝对善。

Only by sharing in beauty itself can something be beautiful. The same goes for the tall and short: a tall man is tall through tallness, and a short man is short through shortness. An individual may grow or shrink, and indeed if he becomes taller he must have been shorter, as was agreed earlier; but though he is first short and then tall, his shortness can never become tallness, nor his tallness shortness. This is so even in the case of a person like Simmias, who, as it happens, is taller than Socrates and shorter than Phaedo. 

只有通过参与美本身，某物才能变得美丽。高和矮也是如此：一个高个子男人是通过高度而高，一个矮个子男人是通过矮度而矮。一个个体可能会长大或缩小，而且如果他变得更高，他必须曾经更矮，正如之前同意过的；但尽管他先矮后高，他的矮度永远不能变成高度，高度也不会变成矮度。即使在像西米亚斯这样的人的情况下也是如此，碰巧他比苏格拉底高，比斐多矮。

The relevance of these remarks to immortality takes some time to become clear. Socrates goes on to make a distinction between what later philosophers would call the contingent and necessary properties of things. Human beings may or may not be 35 tall, but the number three cannot but be odd, and snow cannot but be cold: these properties are necessary to them, and not just contingent. 

这些话与不朽的关系需要一些时间才能变得清楚。苏格拉底继续做出了一个区别，后来的哲学家会称之为事物的偶然属性和必然属性。人类可能是或不是35英尺高，但三这个数字必然是奇数，雪必然是冷的：这些属性对它们来说是必然的，而不仅仅是偶然的。

Now just as coldness cannot turn into heat, so too snow, which is necessarily cold, must either retire or perish at the approach of heat; it cannot remain and become hot snow. 

现在，就像寒冷不能变成热一样，雪，它必然是冷的，必须在热的接近时退缩或消亡；它不能维持自身并变成热雪。

Socrates generalizes: not only will opposites not receive opposites, but nothing which necessarily brings with it an opposite will admit the opposite of what it brings. 

苏格拉底概括说：不仅对立面不会接受对立面，而且任何必然带来一个对立面的东西都不会接受它带来的对立面。

Now Socrates draws his moral. The soul brings life, just as snow brings cold. But death is the opposite of life, so that the soul can no more admit death than snow can admit heat. But what cannot admit death is immortal, and so the soul is immortal. But there is a difference between the soul and snow: when heat arrives, the snow simply perishes. But since what is immortal is also imperishable, the soul, at the approach of death, does not perish, but retires to another world. 

现在苏格拉底得出他的教益。灵魂带来生命，就像雪带来寒冷一样。但死亡是生命的对立面，所以灵魂不能接受死亡，就像雪不能接受热一样。但不能接受死亡的东西是不朽的，所以灵魂是不朽的。但灵魂和雪之间有一个区别：当热到来时，雪就简单地消亡了。但既然不朽的东西也是不可毁灭的，灵魂在死亡的临近时，不会消亡，而是退到另一个世界。

It is not at all clear how this is an answer to Cebes’ contention that the soul might be able to survive one or more deaths without being everlasting and imperishable. But in the dialogue Socrates’ conclusion that the soul is immortal and imperishable and will exist in another world is greeted with acclamation, and the audience settles down to listen to Socrates as he narrates a series of myths about the soul’s journeys in the underworld. 

如何回答塞贝斯的论点是不明晰的，塞贝斯认为灵魂可能能够在没有永恒和不可毁灭的情况下，经历一次或多次死亡。但在对话中，苏格拉底得出的结论是，灵魂是不朽的、不可毁灭的，并将存在于另一个世界，这得到了欢呼，观众安静下来听苏格拉底讲述了一系列关于灵魂在冥界中的旅程的神话。

The narration over, Crito asks Socrates whether he has any last wishes, and how he should be buried. He is told to bear in mind the message of the dialogue: they will be burying only Socrates’ body, not Socrates himself, who is to go to the joys of the blessed. 

叙述结束后，克里托问苏格拉底是否有任何遗愿，以及他应该如何被埋葬。他被告知要记住对话的信息：他们只会埋葬苏格拉底的身体，而不是苏格拉底本人，他将去享受有福者的快乐。

Socrates takes his last bath, and says farewell to the women and children of his family. The gaoler arrives with the cup of the poison, hemlock, which was given to condemned prisoners in Athens as the mode of their execution. After a joke to the gaoler, Socrates drains the cup and composes himself serenely for death as sensation gradually deserts his limbs. His last words are puzzling: ‘Crito, I owe a cock to Aesculapius; will you remember to pay the debt’. Aesculapius was the god of healing. Perhaps the words mean that the life of the body is a disease, and death is its cure . 

苏格拉底洗了最后一次澡，向他家的妇女和孩子告别。狱卒拿着毒药的杯子，毒芹，这是在雅典作为判处死刑的囚犯的处决方式。在对狱卒开了一个玩笑后，苏格拉底喝干了杯子，并且平静地为死亡而安排自己，感觉逐渐离开了他的四肢。他最后的话很令人困惑：“克里托，我欠阿斯克勒庇俄斯一只公鸡；你会记得还债吗？”阿斯克勒庇俄斯是治疗之神。也许这些话的意思是，身体的生命是一种疾病，而死亡是它的治愈。

The Phaedo is a masterpiece: it is one of the finest surviving pieces of Greek prose, and even in translation it moves and haunts the reader. Two questions arise: what does it tell us about Socrates? What does it tell us about the immortality of the soul? 

《斐多》是一部杰作：它是希腊散文中最优秀的幸存作品之一，即使在翻译中也能打动和萦绕读者的内心。两个问题出现了：它告诉我们关于苏格拉底的什么？它告诉我们关于灵魂不朽的什么？

The arguments for immortality, cut out of the pattern of ancient myth into which they are interwoven, are unlikely to convince a modern reader. But even in antiquity, counterarguments would come quickly to mind. Is it true that opposites always come from opposites? Did not Parmenides show that Being could not come from Unbeing? And even where opposites come from opposites, must the cycle continue for ever? Even if sleeping has to follow waking, may not one last waking be followed by everlasting sleep? And however true it may be that the soul cannot abide death, why must it retire elsewhere when the body dies, rather than perish like the melted snow? 

为了不朽而进行的论证，从古代神话的模式中剪切出来，它们被编织在一起，不太可能说服现代的读者。但即使在古代，反论证也会很快浮现在脑海中。对立面总是来自对立面吗？巴门尼德不是证明了存在不能来自非存在吗？即使对立面来自对立面，循环必须永远继续吗？即使睡眠必须伴随醒来，最后一次醒来不也可能被永恒的睡眠所伴随吗？无论灵魂不能忍受死亡是多么真实，为什么它必须在身体死去时退到别处，而不是像融化的雪一样消亡呢？

The most interesting topics of the dialogue are the argument from recollection, and the criticism of the idea that the soul is an attunement of the body. Both of these themes have a long history ahead of them. But the first will be best pursued when we have examined its place in Plato’s own developed system, and the second is best evaluated when we consider the account of the soul given by Plato’s successor Aristotle. 

对话中最有趣的话题是回忆的论证，以及对灵魂是身体的旋律这一观念的批评。这两个主题都有着悠久的历史。但是，当我们检查了“回忆说”在柏拉图自己发展的思想体系中的地位时，第一个将是最好的追求，而当我们考虑柏拉图的继承者亚里士多德给出的灵魂的说法时，第二个将是最好的评价。

In the works of philosophers through the ages, the name ‘Socrates’ occurs on many a page. More often than not, however, it is not a reference to the Athenian who drank the hemlock. It came into common use as a dummy name to be used in the formalization of arguments; as in the syllogism: 

All men are mortal 

Socrates is a man 

Therefore Socrates is mortal. 

在历代哲学家的著作中，“苏格拉底”这个名字出现在许多页面上。然而，更多的时候，它不是指喝下毒药的雅典人。它成为了一个常用的虚拟名字，用于论证的形式化；就像在三段论中：所有人都是会死的 

苏格拉底是一个人 

因此 苏格拉底是会死的。

Particularly in the Middle Ages the name was used daily by writers who knew very little of the story told in the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. In this, as in more solemn ways, the mortality and death of Socrates has echoed through the philosophical literature of the West. 

特别是在中世纪，这个名字被那些对《申辩》、《克里托》和《斐多》中讲述的故事知之甚少的作家每天使用。在这方面，就像在更庄严的方式中一样，苏格拉底的可朽和死亡在西方哲学文献中回响。