Plato for Everyone by Aviezer Tucker

Author:Aviezer Tucker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Prometheus Books
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2012-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

5. Death and Liberation (After the Phaedo)

5

Death and Liberation

(After the Phaedo)

On Interstate 81, just south of Binghamton, New York, there is a restaurant next to a gas station that you can recognize by the plywood on one side. Graffiti on the plywood reads: “No parking inside restaurant.” The restaurant serves minimal fare of sandwiches, burgers, and fries to motorists on their way between upstate New York and the city. The restaurant is completely devoid of any pretension to style, beauty, or sophistication. It sells simple food for reasonable prices to people on the go who prefer a simple and reasonable meal. The more sophisticated travelers drive another five minutes and park outside A Taste of Texas for Southern-style barbeque in the frozen ambience of an upstate New York highway.

In that restaurant, of all places, Fred and Cheryl, two of Socrates’s oldest philosophical companions, ran into each other. Cheryl had found work teaching mathematics and philosophy upstate and so had been forced to leave Socrates’s immediate social circle in the city. Fred worked until his retirement, building stairways in New York. For three decades, he was a regular among the circle of friends and admirers who surrounded Socrates. He performed hard physical labor during the day and philosophized in the evenings. Some people admired his ability to do both. He claimed to think about philosophical problems while cutting wood and installing stairs. After a stroke from which he eventually recovered, Fred retired but remained in New York.

Upon recognizing Fred, Cheryl invited him to sit with her. Since they were acquainted through their friendship with Socrates, he was the obvious topic of conversation. Cheryl regretted that since she had moved upstate, she was unable to be with Socrates when he died and wondered if Fred had been there. When Fred told her that he had been with Socrates until the very moment of his death, she insisted that he tell her all about the last day of Socrates’s life. She wanted to know what Socrates talked about before his death and how he approached it. She had heard, of course, that Socrates chose to die after a long illness. But she did not know any of the details.

Fred asked if she knew that Socrates had been a patient for months at a hospice after he was diagnosed with a form of sclerosis similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease. Cheryl acknowledged that indeed she had heard that. She was surprised, since patients usually do not stay for such a long time at a hospice. Fred explained that Socrates surprised the doctors, who did not expect him to survive for as long as he did.

Cheryl wanted to know all the details. If Fred had the time and it was not too painful or personal, how did Socrates die? Who was there with him? Did the doctors allow Socrates’s friends to be there?

Fred assured Cheryl that he had all the time in the world. The memory of Socrates and his death was not painful at all.

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