Socrates Argument For The Form Of Life

Over the past two thousand years, professors, students and philosophers have studied Socrates’ sayings with much admiration on his wisdom. Socrates’ most prestigious words come bravely when he is facing his own death. In Socrates’ last dialogue, the Phaedo, Socrates argues for the existence of the soul by giving four arguments as to why the soul is eternal. He argues the argument from opposites, argument from the equal also known as the theory of recollection, the argument from affinity, and the argument from the “form of life.” These arguments were made hundreds and hundreds of years ago when they were hard to dispute. However, one can now see that Socrates’ arguments are flawed and he had little ground in which to argue for the soul’s eternity. …show more content…
Socrates believes that slowness comes from quickness just as quickness comes from slowness, that being asleep comes from being awake just as being awake comes from being asleep (Plato 87-88). In that same respect, one can argue that life comes from death just as death comes from life. However, if the soul is eternal and never dies, as this is the main point of Socrates’ argument, then the argument from opposites is flawed. According to this argument, the soul should have an opposite from which it derives, but there is none. To say the opposite is death would mean that the soul must die, but Socrates argues against this, if “the soul does continue to live in the unseen world, then it does not die, and of course lives…. But in order for this to be a legitimate argument, the soul must die that it may come to life again” (“Immortality of the Soul” 70C-72D). From this one can conclude that if the soul came alive from the human body, and if Socrates’ flawed argument shows that the soul never dies, then the soul continues to stay alive even after death. In “Immortality of the Soul,” the narrator explains that one does not derive from its opposite, but succeeds it (69B-70C, 70C-72D). Being quick isn’t an effect of being slow, slowness does not cause quickness, but quickness will happen after being slow. Which furthermore …show more content…
The argument of affinity makes the argument that everything lives in either world A or world B. World A being the world of perishables such as the human body and objects, while world B consists of the imperishable such as thoughts, memories, and the soul (Connolly). In “Immortality of the Soul,” it is argued that there is no knowing way of being able to prove this idea that the soul is not perishable and that it is able to live without the organs of the body (80D). There is no way of truly proving this is true. For these reasons, Socrates’ argument becomes faulty and invalid and works towards proving nothing at