Platos Phaedo The Souls Immortality free essay sample

In the dialogue, Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife on his last day before eing executed by drinking hemlock poison. Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to death by Athenian political leaders for not believing in Athenian gods and for corrupting the youth of the city. The dialogue is told from the perspective of one of Socrates students, Phaedo of Elis. Having been present at Socrates death bed, Phaedo relates the dialogue from that day to Echecrates, a fellow philosopher. By engaging in dialectic with a group of Socrates friends, including the Thebans Cebes nd Simmias, Socrates explores various arguments for the souls immortality in order to show that there is an afterlife in which the soul will dwell following death. Phaedo tells the story that following the discussion, he and the others were there to witness the death of Socrates. One of the main themes in the Phaedo is the idea that the soul is immortal. We will write a custom essay sample on Platos Phaedo: The Souls Immortality or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Socrates offers four arguments for the souls immortality: The Cyclical Argument, or Opposites Argument explains that Forms are eternal and nchanging, and as the soul always brings life, then it must not die, and is necessarily imperishable. As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul must be its indestructible opposite. Plato then suggests the analogy of fire and cold. If the form of cold is imperishable, and fire, its opposite, was within close proximity, it would have to withdraw intact as does the soul during death. This could be likened to the idea of the opposite charges of magnets. The Theory of Recollection xplains that we possess some non-empirical knowledge (e. g. The Form of Equality) at birth, implying the soul existed before birth to carry that knowledge. Another account of the theory is found in Platos Meno, although in that case Socrates implies Anamnesis (previous knowledge of everything) whereas he is not so bold in Phaedo. The Affinity Argument, explains that invisible, immortal, and incorporeal things are different from visible, mortal, and corporeal things. Our soul is of the former, while ur body is of the latter, so when our bodies die and decay, our soul will continue to live. The Argument from Form of Life explains that the Forms, incorporeal and static entities, are the cause of all things in the world, and all things participate in Forms. For example, beautiful things participate in the Form of Beauty; the number four participates in the Form of the Even, etc. The soul, by its very nature, participates in the Form of Life, which means the soul can never die. The Phaedo was first translated into Latin from Greek by Henry Aristippus in 1160.