Phaedo's Analysis

Phaedo is a recount of Socrates’ final hour before his death, written by Plato in the form of a dialogue between Phaedo (Socrates’ prison guard) and Echecrates (1). In Socrates’ final hours we find him surrounded by like minds, pondering what happens to the soul after death, and if death is truly the end or just a new beginning. Those present at the prison include Socrates, Apollodorus, Simmias, Cebes, and Phaedo (2).

4.”Is there, or is there not, an opposite to life? It does. What is it - Death. So the soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along as we agree from what has been said.” (105d-e)

People fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.” Throughout the history of mankind, man has been fascinated with the mystery surrounding death. For many it is a phenomenon which is feared and for others it is a salvation from the misery and suffering of everyday life. In Plato’s “Apology”, Socrates has been sentenced to death and he claims that what “has befallen me is a blessing.” After the conclusion of his trial, he explains that there are two possible outcomes to death. Either death is a final end to one’s existence, or one dies

The Phaedo takes place after the events of the Apology and the Crito, illustrating Socrates final hours and eventual death. This dialogue, like the other two, discusses Socrates view of the nature of death and the afterlife and whether we have good reason to hope that the soul is immortal. However, it is evident that Socrates’ opinion on the subject has shifted once more since the Apology and the Crito. After being released from his chains, Socrates begins to make a comment on human nature regarding pleasure and pain with the quote: “what a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain!” 2 (60b3). With this, he makes the point that our perception of pleasure and pain are mutually dependent on one another, and the lack of one leaves room for the other to thrive. Given the context, this remark can also be applied to Socrates impending death, making it seem as if Socrates believes he will experience pleasure after being released from the pain he currently experiences. He thinks that “a man who has truly spent his life in philosophy is probably right to be of good cheer in the face of death and to be very hopeful that after death he will attain the greatest blessings yonder” 2 (63e8), and “that the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for death and dying” 2 (64a). According to Socrates, philosophy is a preparation for death, and he wants

In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates makes the argument that the soul is immortal. He provides several premises to back up this argument. The first premise is one that his students Cebes and Simmias seem to disagree with and object. This premise is that the soul exists after death. “So we cannot trust this argument and be confident that our soul continues to exist somewhere after out death” (88a). This is the first step upon which Socrates builds his argument.

In Phaedo, Phaedo presents the conversation between Socrates and his companions through his final hours, regarding one of the most fundamental arguments, Socrates’ argument for the immortality of the soul based on its likeness to the Forms. In what follows the essay will be focusing on the three arguments that Socrates provides for the immortality of the soul, the argument from the opposites, the Recollection Theory and the affinity argument, the analyses of Semmias counter arguments as well as Socrates response to them.

avenues for the philosophical life. Socrates defines death as the release of the soul from the body . This definition implies both a view of death as placing distance between the soul and the body during this life and a complete separation at the moment of death. The responsibility of the philosopher is to seek liberation here in this life and, in so doing, to prepare for the afterlife, as preparation for both the literal and figurative deaths coalesce into a single activity.

In Phaedo, by Plato, Phaedo recounts an incident with Socrates. The story starts with Socrates opening up saying that Philosophers should not only accept death, but welcome it. After all, although the body will pass, the soul is able to live on because it is immortal. He uses a lot of his intuition to back up his claim, but the main rationale is the Argument of Affinity. He claims that the world is very binary. Things are either incorporeal and invisible, or not. The body is physical, visible and corporeal. Things like the body that are visible are part of the sensible world and do not last. The soul however is not. It is invisible and incorporeal. That is why Socrates believes the soul is immortal. Simmias counters Socrates claim bringing

Therefore, all things which come into existence and which have an opposite "must necessarily come to be from their opposite and nowhere else.” (Phaedo 136) If opposites come from opposites, then there must be two different ways of coming into existence. If the process of going from living to being dead is called dying, and the process of going from being dead to being alive is called "coming to life again," then we can conclude that the souls of the living come only from the dead, and the souls of men who have died must reside in the

Analysis of Phaedo: Body impeding the Soul Is everything you learn just recollection? Plato answers this question along with many others in the Phaedo. In Socrates last words, he argues the immorality of the soul. One of his arguments is that the body impedes the soul.

Socrates explains that philosophy is the preparation for death. In other words, Socrates has spent the majority of his life preparing for the separation of his body and soul. “…the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (101). He says that because our souls are immortal, we should embrace death and look forward to what it has to offer for our souls. To confirm this belief, Socrates again states, “…the freedom and separation of the soul from the body is called death…those who practice philosophy in the right way, we say, who always want to free the soul; and this release and separation of the soul from the body is the preoccupation of the philosophers” (104). A philosopher’s ambition, when looking toward death, is to free the soul from its body; therefore, when one dies, the soul lives on and the body does not.

Throughout Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates invokes different arguments to portray specific ideas about the immortality of the soul. One of the arguments in which Socrates brings about is the cyclical argument. The cyclical argument, also referred to as the principle of opposites, connects the core ideas of the body and the mind to later prove that the soul is an immortal entity. Forms are ever changing in and of themselves to create the cycle in which Socrates explains the basis of all things. It is through knowledge of the Forms, and the existence of the body and the soul that Socrates enhances the cyclical argument to demonstrate the concepts leading to the immortality of the soul.

When one goes to prison, one is stripped of one’s freedom, possessions, and overall sense of identity. Similarly, Socrates views the body as taking something away from the soul. However, in this case it is not freedom nor identity, but wisdom. The belief that the body takes something from an individual is present in Socrates’ epistemological beliefs. To Socrates, learning is recollection. To prove this, Socrates introduces the Theory of Opposites, which states that all things in the world come out of their opposites: largeness out of smallness, loudness out of quietness, life out of death. He reasons that this proves that the soul is immortal and after death enters a new body. This idea alone lends itself to the body as a prison metaphor as a soul does not belong to any body, but rather put inside of a body with a degree of randomness. However, the prison-body metaphor is more strongly reinforced by Socrates’ belief that the soul is exposed to the Forms in the period between death and

Plato has roused many readers with the work of a great philosopher by the name of Socrates. Through Plato, Socrates lived on generations after his time. A topic of Socrates that many will continue to discuss is the idea of “an immortal soul”. Although there are various works and dialogues about this topic it is found to be best explained in The Phaedo. It is fair to say that the mind may wonder when one dies what exactly happens to the beloved soul, the giver of life often thought of as the very essence of life does it live on beyond the body, or does it die with it? Does the soul have knowledge of the past if it really does live on?

Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in ancient Greece. While he was eventually condemned for his wisdom, his spoken words are still listened to and followed today. When, during his trial, Socrates stated that, “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 45), people began to question his theory. They began to wonder what Socrates meant with his statement, why he would feel that a life would not be worth living. To them, life was above all else, and choosing to give up life would be out of the picture. They did not understand how one would choose not to live life just because he would be unable to examine it.