• Home Page
  • The Body And The Soul In The Phaedo

The Body And The Soul In The Phaedo

Improved Essays
Show More
In this essay I will be stating three different arguments first, the relationship between the body and the soul in the Phaedo. Second, I will be stating how Plato’s argument from affinity support his view. And last but not least, the reason why a true philosopher is unafraid of death. There are two classes of things, visible and invisible. Visible things are those we know that exist because they have a form and the invisible things are those we cannot see, they have no form. Many people know that we have a soul we have never seen it but we assume that we have one because a body is not a body without a soul. By linking the soul to the invisible class of things, Socrates concludes that the soul must be immortal. The argument for Affinity …show more content…
Plato says that the soul is trapped inside our body. The soul can’t live without the body, so the only thing that the soul can do is take control of the body. The body has a negative impact upon the operations of the soul because the soul is looking at everything from the inside. The only way that the soul is freed from the body is when the body dies. The soul is released from the prison that it had live for so long. The soul needs to be absolved from all the good or bad deeds that the body has done. Philosophers should not be afraid of dying because they have been preparing themselves for death all their lives. Plato states that there is an afterlife for the souls and a person’s actions while they were alive is what helps determine where he soul will go. If a person lives a good life the souls will have a good afterlife but if a person lives a bad life, then the soul will live a bad afterlife. Living a good life is living a humble life and living a bad life is being a person that is full of …show more content…
Death is not something that you can prepare for, death is something that comes and goes unexpectedly. Simmias’ believes that the reason for the soul’s existence is the body. If the body does not exist, then the soul does not exist as well. Simmias’ is contradicting Socrates first argument. Simmias’ does not understand why the souls lives on after the body dies, he argues that once the body dies then the soul must die with the body. On the other hand, Cebs argues that he does not believe that the soul is immortal. He knows that we cannot see the soul but just because we don’t see it does not mean it’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Socrates Soul Analysis
    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Socrates Soul Analysis

    This section of “Plato’s Republic” demonstrates key ideas of the soul from Socrates view point. From the start of this section Socrates introduces his ideas to Glaucon. Socrates believed that cities have three attributes. He goes on to explain that since the attributes of a city come from the people living within, the soul must also be split into three attributes. Socrates attempts to break down the soul into three different categories; the part of the soul that learns or thinks (rational), the part of the soul that desires pleasure, and the part of the soul that is spirit. 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
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates Cyclical Argument Analysis
    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Socrates Cyclical Argument Analysis

    Our soul is immortal and our body is mortal and therefore when our bodies die, our soul will continue to live. The Opposites Argument is also known as the Cyclical Argument because it clarifies the cycle of death and life. The cycle includes the dead being created from the living and through death, the living are created from the dead through their birth. The soul extracts itself completely unscathed from the physical body at our death then enters another body at birth. The soul, which always brings life, is eternal and enduring. The resulting conclusion is not solely immortality – it is an boundless cycle of reincarnation. If life goes into death but death never back into life, then there will be no life and all things will remain in the state of death. Further, if there is no everlasting cycle of death and life, and if there are a finite number of souls, then ultimately every living thing will be dead. However, we should not rush death. Socrates believed that man should never kill himself since we have no ownership of ourselves. He emphasized that men belonged to the gods and he says, “I believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we men are a chattel of theirs” (62b). The ownership our death is in the gods’ hands, not…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Plato's Apology: Socrates Should Not Fear Death
    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Plato's Apology: Socrates Should Not Fear Death

    Socrates makes the argument that one should not fear death because only the gods know what is beyond death,because death could be a blessing. According to Socrates, “I had at the risk of death, like anyone else, remained at my post where those you had elected to command had ordered me, and then, when the god ordered me, as I thought and believed, to live the life as a philosopher, to examine myself and others, I…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Value Of The Soul In Plato's Republic
    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Value Of The Soul In Plato's Republic

    In Republic Book IV, Plato introduces a new understanding of the human soul that remains “advantageous for each part and for the whole soul, which is the community of all three parts” (442c6-8). Thus we reach a point…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Socrates In The Phaedo Final Analysis
    • 1875 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Socrates In The Phaedo Final Analysis

    In the Phaedo, Socrates’ first argument of Immortality is the Cyclical Argument of Opposites . This argument is based on an ancient doctrine which affirms that the living descend from the dead . According to this philosophy,…

    • 1875 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Analysis Of Plato, Phaedo, And Lucretius
    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Analysis Of Plato, Phaedo, And Lucretius

    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
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Eliot Deutsch's The Concept Of The Body
    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Eliot Deutsch's The Concept Of The Body

    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. When the others agree to this point, Socrates then notes that a philosopher does not “concern himself with the so-called pleasures connected with” bodily pleasures (Phaedo, 64d). Thus, he concludes, through death a philosopher is freed from bodily temptations, which only serve to distract from thinking about higher truths, for “when [the soul] tries to investigate anything with the help of the body, it is obviously led astray” (Pha.,…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Role Of The Soul In Plato's Republic
    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Role Of The Soul In Plato's Republic

    Throughout the Republic, Plato mentions the soul several times. Plato agrees that the soul is immortal and separate from the body. He also believes that the soul is eternal and according to Plato, the soul doesn’t come into existence with the body, but rather exists prior to being with the body. He believed that the soul exists inside the body until it dies. Because of this, Plato called the body the prison to the soul.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Plato's Final Argument For The Imorality Of The Soul
    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Plato's Final Argument For The Imorality Of The Soul

    I believe that, by using Socrates’ own arguments, we can see that the soul cannot, in fact, be deathless. Socrates says that the soul is what gives the body life: “what is it that, present in a body, makes it living? – A soul” (Plato, Phaedo, 105d). So, it seems that, without the soul, the body itself would be lifeless. If the soul is the only thing that gives the body life, then how is it possible for us to die? Death can only destroy living things. For us to die, death would have to destroy the living part of us—namely, the soul. If the soul is deathless, then it seems impossible for us to die. Nevertheless, Socrates claims that “when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but the deathless part of him goes away safe and indestructible” (Plato, Phaedo, 106e). The only way I can make sense of this potential inconsistency is by assuming that, when death approaches the body, the soul retreats and therefore removes what gives the body life. In that way, it seems as though human death might be possible. But Socrates does not explicitly account for this, so again I remain…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Tripartite Soul Argument In Plato's Republic
    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Tripartite Soul Argument In Plato's Republic

    Plato elaborates on the tripartite soul by saying that it is composed of three parts and he classifies them as the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive parts. He defends the argument by stating that nothing can at the same time and same respect do opposite things. An example he presents is a top, as it can move in a circle in one respect but cannot move in another (Republic, 436d). Since the soul does different things at the same time it cannot be composed by only one part. He identifies the parts of the soul by stating that the rational part of the soul is what desires wisdom. The desires of the rational part of the soul sometimes oppose the desires of the appetitive part. Reason being that the thinking part , which discerns reality, judges what is true or false, and makes the rational decisions. While the appetitive part is what desires “unqualified…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    Phaedo And Descartes: The Comparison Of Mind And The Body
    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Phaedo And Descartes: The Comparison Of Mind And The Body

    During the Golden Age of Pericles ' Athens, Plato, an intellectual individual, set out to understand the relations that occurred between the body and the soul. With immense studying of his former teacher, Socrates, Plato came to his realization that the body and the soul were in fact separate from one another. Not only are the two separate, but he discovered that the soul itself is immaterial and immortal and wishes nothing more then to (insert freeing the body quote). Plato’s understanding of the body would not have been possible without Socrates’ theories of opposites, recollection, and scattering of objects.…

    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Good And Evil In Plato's Ancient Greek Philosophy
    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Good And Evil In Plato's Ancient Greek Philosophy

    To Plato, the body is more or less a dirty vessel that the soul and abstract forms manifest themselves in, such as beauty (Symposium, 211d-211e). In fact, he despises the body so much as liken it to “bonds” that keep his soul from reaching its desired goal of attaining knowledge (Phaedo, 67c-67d). According to this view of reality, the physical self inherently wants those things which the philosophers of the time thought of as evil (Phaedo, 66b). Clearly in all of this, this philosopher is demonstrating that he identifies not with his physical self, but rather almost exclusively with his mind. Perhaps the boldest statement in this regard is made through Plato’s usual representative character, Socrates, in…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Phaedo: Plato And The Argument From Opposites
    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Phaedo: Plato And The Argument From Opposites

    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. One of his arguments that I will discuss is known as the “Argument from Opposites,” which I will prove does not fully succeed in establishing that the soul is immortal.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    The Soul And The Body In Aristotle's De Anima
    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Soul And The Body In Aristotle's De Anima

    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. For when a man dies, it is merely the body (the moral part) that dies, while the indestructible, deathless soul remains immortal. True, for Aristotle, the soul cannot be immortal. Yet, he has not lost the ability to distinguish between the soul and the body, by claiming the soul cannot exist without the body. The soul and the body are yet distinguishable as form and actuality, and as matter and potentiality (respectively). What Aristotle offers us that is different, is a clearer understanding of soul and body as a…

    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More
  • Great Essays

    The Argument Of Plato: There Is An Immortal Soul
    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Argument Of Plato: There Is An Immortal Soul

    Plato believes this desire for knowledge cannot be explained by the body and there must be something stronger (Plato 11). Humans also have a strong sense of virtue. Courage, temperance, prudence, and justice will make one flourish. The drive to be able to control the body to achieve virtue means there is something higher; this something higher is placed in the immortal soul Plato believes human beings have (Plato 11). The third argument Plato mentions is the argument from things opposite in nature. In this argument, Plato suggests good things come from bad, and that souls are therefore born from the dead (Plato 11). Plato’s fourth argument deals with how we gain our knowledge. Plato believes each person already has knowledge, but at birth we forget all the information we have learned in our previous life (Plato 16,17). Through new experiences and the right triggers, individuals recall the information from the past life. Since the sense experience for one to recall this information had to be within us before birth, Plato argues that this is why the soul is continuous (Plato 17). One of Plato’s last arguments talks about composition and simplicity. Plato believes the body is…

    • 1561 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
    Read More

Related Topics

Ready To Get Started?
Discover
Company
Follow
©2023 Cram.com
Privacy Policy |  About Ads |  Site Map |  Advertise  | 
  • Cookie Settings