Phaedo's Death In Socrates 'Phaedo'

The Phaedo is a recalling of the last conversation Socrates had before his death, as heard by Phaedo. The dialogue begins when Phaedo meets with Echecrates and Echecrates wants to know if Phaedo knows anything about the details around Socrates death. We then find out a long time has passed since Socrates was sentenced. The reason there was a delay in his execution was that the Athenians don't carry out any executions during an annual voyage to Delos to visit Apollo's temple. It's then when asked about the manner of Socrates’s death and what was said that Phaedo explains his feelings of grief around his death. However, he does note that Socrates spoke graciously and felt happy for his upcoming death. Phaedo gives us a foreshadowing when the …show more content…
Cebes brings up that some people believe that the soul dies the same day the person dies. This is one my favorite parts of Socrates portion of the discussion. The reason I love this part is that Socrates lays out how opposites form other opposites. He shows that greater things come from being less, good comes evil, and to the point of the inquiry, that life comes from death. To explain these processes he shows Cebes that all things are in a state of being and whatever state they are in has been brought into existence by its opposite state of being. So if something was greater it had to come from a state of being less. Once Socrates established opposites create each other, he asked what the opposite of living is. That is when Cebes replies, death. Following this, Socrates asks more clarifying questions about how the death/life cycle works. To which Cebes follows the stream of questioning to state that being born is the dead returning to life. Concluding that if the dead are in fact coming back to life, then they must be going somewhere and the place that’s agreed upon is the