Phaedo. The question of this dialogue: Man before death. Should man love death? If so, why then, condemn suicide? Or should man hate death? Rather, shouldn’t he revolt against it and flee it no matter what? Facing the enigma of death, the dialogue, leads first, to a practical response: how does the philosopher conduct himself in the face of death? Then toward a theoretical question: What do we know of the immortality of the soul? Throughout the dialogue, Socrates proclaims that the exercise of thought -its dialogical reflection- is a purification of the soul. It prepares one to overcome the fear of death, and to remain master of oneself. His second proclamations are introduced by Cebes’ suspicion: he believes that the soul dies along
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The philosopher, knowing that reminiscence necessarily occurs by the riddance of opinion, expresses however just that; an opinion: “ Consider then, my good sir, whether you share my opinion”. Furthermore, defining death as a purification of the soul, he introduces his assertions as a belief or an opinion. Thus, not a demonstration but a bet, not a certitude but a hope: And if this is true, my friend, said Socrates, there is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life, so that the journey that is now ordered for me is full of good hope, as it is also for any other man who believes that his mind has been prepared and, as it were, …show more content…
Exercise, on the other hand, or philosophical practices reverse the habits of common sense: the common opinion, captivated by the sensible, dismisses thought; philosophical habit, on the contrary, reflecting thought within itself, detaches itself from the sensible. And yet, Socrates starts his assessments based on a common opinion: “ Is death anything else than the separation of the soul from the body?”. Socrates is referring to a popular belief. The body is an inert material as seen in a corpse. The soul is the principle of movement. It animates the body and transmits the breath of life within it. Thus, body and soul oppose as: life and death, momentum and gravity, motion and
The philosopher, knowing that reminiscence necessarily occurs by the riddance of opinion, expresses however just that; an opinion: “ Consider then, my good sir, whether you share my opinion”. Furthermore, defining death as a purification of the soul, he introduces his assertions as a belief or an opinion. Thus, not a demonstration but a bet, not a certitude but a hope: And if this is true, my friend, said Socrates, there is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life, so that the journey that is now ordered for me is full of good hope, as it is also for any other man who believes that his mind has been prepared and, as it were, …show more content…
Exercise, on the other hand, or philosophical practices reverse the habits of common sense: the common opinion, captivated by the sensible, dismisses thought; philosophical habit, on the contrary, reflecting thought within itself, detaches itself from the sensible. And yet, Socrates starts his assessments based on a common opinion: “ Is death anything else than the separation of the soul from the body?”. Socrates is referring to a popular belief. The body is an inert material as seen in a corpse. The soul is the principle of movement. It animates the body and transmits the breath of life within it. Thus, body and soul oppose as: life and death, momentum and gravity, motion and