Nicomachean Ethics

Cleombrotus of Ambracia.

We must take diligent care that we do not fall into the same error into which that youth Cleombrotus of Ambracia fell, who, having read this definition and sentiment in Plato’s Phaedo—in which dialogue Plato teaches at length that the soul ought to be separated from the body, and shows that this is the practice of philosophy—thought that the separation of the soul from the body which occurs by the dissolution of the composite was Plato’s philosophy. Therefore, thinking by this opinion that he must seek his own death, he threw himself from the citadel of the city and perished by the fall; but truly, his own opinion utterly deceived that youth. For he did not understand Plato’s meaning, and he wrongfully destroyed himself.

But we ought to know that, according to Plato’s opinion, the soul is separated from the body in two ways. In one way, by the dissolution of the composite, as is commonly said. In another way, through the contemplation and operation of those powers by which man is seen to differ most from the beasts. For when our soul operates by its noblest powers—not by following the sensitive appetite, nor sense, nor imagination, but reason and the mind, having set aside all things that belong to the body—then it is said, not unfittingly, to be separated from the body. Wherefore, with respect to the end, philosophy itself is said to be the meditation of death, because it seems to achieve this end—that is, to separate the soul from the body in the manner we have mentioned—through contemplation.

Cicero also seems to recall this sentiment in the Tusculan Disputations, when he says: “The whole life of philosophers, as Socrates says, is a study of death. For what else do we do when we withdraw the soul from pleasure (that is, from the body), from domestic affairs (which are the servant and handmaid of the body), from the republic, and from all business? What, I say, do we do then, but call the soul to itself, compel it to be with itself, and especially lead it away from the body? But to sever the soul from the body is nothing other than to learn how to die; wherefore let us meditate upon this.”

How the separation of the soul from the body is to be understood according to Plato’s opinion.

Tusculan Disputations, Book 1.