Echecrates, knowing that Phaedo was present in the moments leading to Socrates’ execution, pleads with him to recount his final conversation with Socrates. Phaedo notes that a number of Socrates’ friends were present in his cell including Crito and two Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cerbes. The group’s discussion begins with Socrates presenting a central theme of the text: that philosopher should look forward to death. Although he argues that suicide lacks a moral justification, Socrates maintains that the life of a philosopher is a preparation for death. He first claims that death is a release of the soul from the body. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha.,
Echecrates, knowing that Phaedo was present in the moments leading to Socrates’ execution, pleads with him to recount his final conversation with Socrates. Phaedo notes that a number of Socrates’ friends were present in his cell including Crito and two Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cerbes. The group’s discussion begins with Socrates presenting a central theme of the text: that philosopher should look forward to death. Although he argues that suicide lacks a moral justification, Socrates maintains that the life of a philosopher is a preparation for death. He first claims that death is a release of the soul from the body. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha.,