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Purpose:
This paper is an evaluation of Socrates’ argument from Phaedo for why philosophers should desire death. Socrates characterizes death as being the only avenue by which Philosophers may obtain wisdom. He does this by arguing that the body acts as a hindrance to one’s reason, and obscures it, making it impossible to know truths during one’s life. However, this argument unfairly characterizes the truthfulness of the senses, and therefore projects a futility of the philosopher’s virtue during life. Although Socrates does not condone suicide, this pessimism towards life in conjunction with a depiction of a liberating afterlife, while a happy prospect for a condemned man, is perhaps unfair to the living.
Clarification:
Socrates prefaces his argument with by justifying the suggestion that philosophers, who live their lives rejecting …show more content…
“The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture. Moreover, if certain diseases befall it, they impede our search for truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all this makes us too busy to practice philosophy.” (66b,66d)
Socrates himself may have enjoyed the pleasures of life, such as in his admitted inquiry of music. However, it is also possible that he investigates these pleasures only for the sake of wisdom, and never for the pleasures themselves. Therefore he would not have betrayed his purpose of pursuing
Purpose:
This paper is an evaluation of Socrates’ argument from Phaedo for why philosophers should desire death. Socrates characterizes death as being the only avenue by which Philosophers may obtain wisdom. He does this by arguing that the body acts as a hindrance to one’s reason, and obscures it, making it impossible to know truths during one’s life. However, this argument unfairly characterizes the truthfulness of the senses, and therefore projects a futility of the philosopher’s virtue during life. Although Socrates does not condone suicide, this pessimism towards life in conjunction with a depiction of a liberating afterlife, while a happy prospect for a condemned man, is perhaps unfair to the living.
Clarification:
Socrates prefaces his argument with by justifying the suggestion that philosophers, who live their lives rejecting …show more content…
“The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its need for nurture. Moreover, if certain diseases befall it, they impede our search for truth. It fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all this makes us too busy to practice philosophy.” (66b,66d)
Socrates himself may have enjoyed the pleasures of life, such as in his admitted inquiry of music. However, it is also possible that he investigates these pleasures only for the sake of wisdom, and never for the pleasures themselves. Therefore he would not have betrayed his purpose of pursuing