THE PYTHAGORIAN CONFESSION OF THE PHAEDO: SOCRATES, THE LOVER OF DEATH

The Phaedo is the platonic introduction of Socrates as a Pythagorean philosopher. However, can we infer from it, as indicated by the usual interpretations of this dialogue, "the creed of platonic philosophy"? There are many arguments to state the opposite view: on the one hand, the characterization of a "pythagorean Socrates" is completely foreign to the different sources of a real Socrates; on the other hand, the Phaedo is contrary to the general attitude of Socrates' Corpus Platonicum, who doesn't seem to be an enemy of the body and its pleasures. In this paper, I propose the following theses: 1) The Phaedo, in particular, the passage known as "The defense of Socrates" (62c9-69e4), is the preliminary attempt to sketch something as the philosophical and religious principles of the new socratic pythagorism; 2) The dialogue doesn't suggest the historic Socrates felt any particular inclination for those principles nor that Plato himself hold that position.