Socrates Summary Of The Phaedo

This dialogue is sometimes referred to as Socrates swan song. It is Important to be familiar with a summary of the Phaedo. It takes place in the town of Phlius, Echecrates encounters Phaedo a friend of Socrates' who was there in his final hours. Echecrates wants to hear the story from a first-hand, and presses for information. Phaedo explains a number of Socrates' friends were gathered in his cell prior to his execution. Some of these people included Crito, and two philosophers who go by the name of Simmias and Cebes. Simmias was a philosopher from Thebes and Cebes was from Phaedondas.
During the dialogue Socrates suggest that suicide is wrong, but he believes a true philosopher should look forward to death. He then goes on to say he believes the soul is immortal. Socrates feels a philosopher should spend his life training to detach itself form the body. He tries to justify his beliefs using four different arguments.
The first of the arguments is about opposites. He says everything comes from its opposite. For instance an old man becomes old because he was young before. By saying this be believes there is a natural order to things. Similarly when it comes to death, it is the opposite of life. Therefore, living things come to be out of dead things. He implies that there is cycle of life and death. So when we die we do not stay dead. Rather he suggest …show more content…
Socrates replies to Simmias, and points out that his theory is in conflict with his theory of recollection. Socrates says that the theory proposes that the soul existed before the body. Therefore it couldn’t be true. As for Cebes, Socrates has an intense discussion that ultimately leads him to lay out his last argument. It suggest that all elements are said to consist oppose life in almost everything throughout life, and exercise every form of control. The “Form” of life is an essential property of the soul. Socrates says it’s inconceivable to think of the soul as ever being anything but