The Second Navigation as Dialogue

This paper is a reappraisal of Socrates’ famous “second navigation” (δεύτερος πλοῦς) in the Phaedo. First, I contend that scholars have not taken the specifics of the second navigation metaphor seriously enough in their understanding of this Socratic reorientation. The kind of second-best that the δεύτερος πλοῦς implies is one in which the best option is unavailable for reasons that are irreducible to the limitations of the philosopher (or of human beings more generally). Second, I argue that the δεύτερος πλοῦς is not formal causality or to the hypothetical method, but the turn to λόγοι as images of beings and, in extenso, the turn to dialogue as the mode of philosophical inquiry par excellence. Forms and hypotheses suppose and depend upon that prior reorientation according to speeches. Third, I argue that the πρῶτος πλοῦς is not teleology but an impossible direct empirical inquiry, and thus, that the second navigation does not abandon teleology altogether.