Analysis Of Plato's Five Dialogues By Plato

Decent Essays
In the book Five Dialogues by Plato in the dialogue of Phaedo we learn the philosophical point of view for the immortality of the soul. Socrates gives us two different views that he gives us facts and examples to prove. The first argument is the opposite argument. The second argument that is presented through the theory of recollection. The first argument that Socrates says is the opposite argument. This argument consists of two premises. The first premises says opposite comes from opposite. Premises two says that life is the opposite if being dead, and being dead is the opposite of being alive. Premises one is saying that all opposite comes from opposite meaning that short comes from tall and tall comes from short. Big comes from small and …show more content…
In this theory Socrates also gives two premises the first says all learning in this life is recollection. The second premises says if so, then our soul must have existed before it was in the body. In the first premises what Socrates is saying that we have learned everything before when we were in a different soul and now in our current bodies as we are taught things it is all in our brains and we are recollecting it. So everything we recollect is not new but information that we recollect as we learn. The second premises supports the first by saying that the soul hasn’t just been in our current body but that it is immortal meaning that even if our current body dies the soul will always stay alive. At the moment of death the body will die but the soul will go to another living thing. Therefore Socrates is saying the soul can exist without the body and is immortal. To prove this point Socrates uses the theory of forms which says that there are many forms of one thing but it is in a higher place or heaven. It is the one and only to really be or claim to be that form. For example, many things are considered beautiful like a dress, a person, or a piece of art. In the heavens there is the real beautiful and as we live on this earth we compare these objects here as beautiful because our soul has seen it and we recollect

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There is a whole body, and that body has parts; some of which move and other that do not. Socrates uses this analogy to explain that the body is not a single thing, rather is it a collection of different parts.…

    • 725 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abdulkabir Adejumo Professor Escalante PHILO 1301 11/2/2017 Response Paper 1 “Do We Survive Death?” In this interesting chapter, James Rachels starts by uncovering the philosophy of Socrates about the immortal soul. At that point, he utilizes the scientific argument to conflict with Socrates' conclusion about the presence of the soul as a piece of the human body.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the two texts that we read in class, Plato, Phaedo, and Lucretius, Nature of Things, both Socrates and Lucretius try to reassure us that we should not be afraid of death. In Plato, Phaedo, Phaedo is telling the story of Socrates’s final hours from being their first hand. In Lucretius, Nature of Things, Lucretius’s telling his view on religious issues and how he got to his view, poetic skills, and study on scientific phenomena. Both Socrates and Lucretius have different arguments on why we should not be afraid of death. Socrates and Lucretius would have their own responses to each other 's argument if they were to reply to each other.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates’ perception of the afterlife is where “all the dead are (pg. 16) therefore he will be able to meet with other famous philosophers and warriors and will continue to debate philosophy for eternity. Socrates asserts that the ruling is a blessing and does so to justify this claim through an association fallacy: death is either an afterlife or eternal rest. Since the afterlife is good and eternal rest is good, then therefore, death must inherently be…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Plato uses Socrates belief in the soul 's immortality to prove the necessity of the theory of recollection in the fulfillment of true knowledge. Thus, Plato develops the idea of the soul 's repeated reincarnation and suggests that the soul 's learning is forgotten by the event of birth in a new body, and the growth of knowledge within the mind during a lifetime is simply the recollection of knowledge from the soul. Meno is always questioning Socrates and his questions then leads to further discussion that proof recollection. Socrates instructs Meno to" pay attention then whether you think he is recollecting or learning from me"(82b). Socrates question Meno 's attendant on the area of a square figure with four sides that are equal.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates’ Success in Answering Meno’s Paradox Introduction In the dialogue Meno, Socrates and Meno start by attempting to find what virtue is, but are unsuccessful. They then dig into a more generalized question of how to find what any thing or idea is when one does not know what it is they are looking for. This is Meno 's Paradox. Socrates attempts to solve this paradox through the theory of recollection which states that the human soul is immortal and has knowledge of everything.…

    • 1174 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The “cyclical argument” of the Phaedo imparts the ideology Socrates had in regard to the immortality of the soul and his views about death, which he was about to face himself. Among a gathering of his most faithful followers, his friends are astonished that Socrates is not desolate about his ill fate, but rather, he is delighted with it. Socrates proclaims that the life of a philosopher is merely a preparation for death since the mind is most pure when the pressures of the body is felt least. He even informs them that he believes in the soul and the afterlife. After his friends vocalized their skepticism of his beliefs, he begins a discourse in which he attempts to prove the immortality of the soul.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Phaedo is perhaps one of the most well-known dialogues written by the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. This dialogue recounts Socrates’ final hours before his death as told by Phaedo of Elis, one of the philosophers present during that time. Along with him were Crito and two other Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cebes. The main focus of this dialogue is on the subject of immortality and the soul, and whether or not the soul will survive death. Socrates provides four arguments in which he aims to prove that the soul is in fact immortal.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    For in Plato’s Phaedo, the soul is understood to merely be harbored in the body for a brief period. According to the Argument from the Form of Life, the soul, as being what gives life to a body, is the form of life thereby and cannot admit the opposite form, which is death (Plato 105D). Hence, the soul is indeed deathless (Plato 105E). We can see that the establishment of a kind of dualism motivates this argument. The soul is successful characterized as completely distinct and separate from the body.…

    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The podcast deals with the dialogue “Plato’s Republic” written around 400 BC, which discusses the meaning of justice and what it truly means to be just. Firstly, a background in ancient Greece’s politics was offered, speaking of the appeals and brutal regimes of government prior to democracy being restored. The major issue addressed in the podcast is the execution of Socrates by the majority of Athens for the corruption of youth in and the introduction of gods that the Greeks did not once believe in.…

    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates Soul Analysis

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages

    However, Socrates is still unsure; he still believes that the soul could be one entity rather than split into three. So to prove it he states that each part of the soul…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Socrates’s Argument on Death The topic of death frightens human beings for several reasons because of the speculation and the anxiety that surround death. Even though most people fear death, philosophers such as Socrates argue that there is no valid reason to fear death (Ahrensdorf 1995). According to 5Socrates, death is a blessing in the context of the relocation of the soul. Socrates avers that death is something that people should not fear and provide several arguments to validate his argument.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the Phaedo, Plato provides several arguments in an attempt to prove the immorality of the soul. In this essay, I will focus on his Final Argument, which describes the Forms as causes, subject to destruction or displacement when the particular undergoes some change. Next, I will show how Socrates applies these ideas to argue for the immortality of the soul. Finally, I will present a few reservations I have about the validity of this argument.…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    When attempting to solve the problem concerning the immortality of the soul, both Plato and Hume must rely on analogy. Plato, being a rationalist, argues that the soul is immortal and is comparable to a form, for it is invisible and incomposite, unlike material objects. Hume, on the other hand, believes that the soul is mortal and compares souls to perishable objects such as bodies. Although neither analogy can offer any validity, Hume 's argument for the mortality of the soul is far more compelling than Plato 's opposing argument.…

    • 1519 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics