Plato's Phaedo Summary

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In the essay, Phaedo, Plato gives us Socrates’s idea of the life of a philosopher, in what is his final hours before he drinks the poison. This takes place a couple of days after Crito. The setting is in Socrates’s cell, his wife and children are with him, but leave before he drinks the poison. Also in the cell with him is Phaedo, Crito, Cimmias and Cebes, to ask the question, “why is Socrates egger to drink the poison?” He answers with, to study philosophy is to prepare yourself for death (64a). Socrates then explains that the body and soul are separated at death (64e), which is where the conversation begins to pick up. He explains the soul and that it comes back to find another body to live in. Cebes does agree with much of what Socrates …show more content…
This is where Socrates introduces the “Affinity.” Cebes brings them back to the souls and the body, to examine some more things that he is having trouble understanding, but ends up not agreeing with him on the soul. This is both Simmias and Cebes, that do not agree with him. They explain that both are having trouble understanding what Socrates is trying to say, but do not want to push the issue because of the circumstances that Socrates is in. Simmian asks for a visual picture of the relationship between the stings of a lyre and the lyre itself, in comparison to the body and soul (86a). Cebes concerns are comparable to Simmias, but Cebes problem is that he does not see the soul as immortal (87a-b). Socrates uses an analogy of a clock of a man that is worn out time and time again, but the person out lasts the clock. Socrates does have to admit that he cannot say for certain that the soul lasts forever, but it does go through lots of bodies. Socrates is not able to get his companions to agree with his argument, but they do agree with some of them. After a long debt, He resolves Simmias troubles with Homet and his Odysseus (94d0e), But Socrates needs to give more evidence to Cebes for the longevity of the soul. He does use an example of his life and coming to understand these

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