Phaedo

Phaedo describes the moments before Socrates’ death to Echecrates; telling him about Socrates’ thoughts on the immortality of the personal soul. Phaedo ends by Socrates drinking poison and saying his final words to his dear friend Crito. Socrates teaches much about the nature of the personal soul, virtue, learning, and knowledge, however the Phaedo suggests these doctrines are intending to not be Socrates’ legacy. These suggestions are Socrates’ words to Cebes, his advice to his friends, and his final words. Each suggestion provides insight on Socrates’ legacy and how he wants that to be shown when he dies. In the Phaedo, Socrates, on his death bed, asks Cebes if he could suggest something to Cebes’ friend Evenus. He wants Cebes, to ask…

Plato’s Phaedo is set in the city of Philius where a follower of Socrates, named Phaedo, meets Echecrates, a thinker. Echecrates was very interested in Socrates’s final hours before he died and Phaedo was the best person to tell the story since he was present on Socrates’s last day. In Phaedo, there are two separate degrees of narration: Phaedo is telling Echecrates the story of Socrates and Socrates’s final philosophical discussion prior to his death. The reason for Socrates’s death was that…

Plato’s dialogue Phaedo is one of his most famous works, as it concerns the death of Socrates and the philosophical concepts associated with his death. The Phaedo dialogue is considered to be a part of Plato’s “middle period” in that it is a firm description of Plato’s philosophical thought and not simply a direct recollection of what was said by Socrates. Plato covers multiple themes, the most important of which being his idea of the “realm of the forms,” arguments for the mortality of the…

soul by Socrates occurs in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo. The discussion of immortality and reincarnation arises as early as the soul itself in Phaedo and has many elements comparable to Plato’s later dialogue – Phaedrus. The two present dialogues address the meaning of philosophy and the immortality of the soul in different, and sometimes contradicting ways, but analyzing them together creates an ultimate analysis of two crucial immortality arguments. Plato focuses on the Theory of Recollection…

In the Meno and in the Phaedo, Socrates claims that the human soul exists before birth. In the Meno, Socrates makes this claim by claiming that learning is not the discovery of something new, but a recollection of something already known by the soul before we were born, but have only forgotten. Socrates’ claim that knowledge is recollection does not apply to all kinds of knowledge, only to the knowledge of abstract, unchanging entities (i.e., mathematics) that are not subject to the vagaries and…

James Moore Dr. Georgia Mouroutsou Philosophy 2205W October 18, 2016 Plato’s Argument for the Souls Immortality The mysteries beyond our physical lives have always been up for debate. Arguments from the dawn of rationality range anywhere from religion to the sciences as to decipher human origin, our purpose in life and what lies beyond our known existence. Plato, an ancient Greek and arguably most prominent philosopher in history expresses his view in his work the “Phaedo” using his predecessor…

that someone should only pay attention to his trainer or doctor just because they have the knowledge that the general public might not have. This idea of not worrying about what others say is an idea that should be used today, where we should not concern ourselves with other people’s opinion, but listen to the voice of those who knows best – teachers, parents, and God in order to achieve a good life. If one is constantly listening to other people’s opinions one is not living for themselves,…

In his work Phaedo, Plato, through the voice of Socrates, voices his opinions on the immortality of the soul. Throughout the novel, Socrates asserts that he does not fear death, but welcomes it. Because Socrates is a philosopher, he has spent his life embracing the idea that the soul can only obtain pure knowledge upon being separated from the body. Socrates thus welcomes death because his soul will be from the body and surrounded by pure knowledge. In his Argument from Recollection, Socrates…

In the section of the Phaedo we read, Socrates argues that one has knowledge of the form absolute equality prior to birth, and that learning is a “recovering of knowledge which is natural to us” (40). Socrates’ argument for theory of recollection and that one cannot acquire knowledge of absolute equality through empirical means does succeed despite some minor issues with it. Socrates first proves that there is no example of absolute equality in one’s own experience. To do this Socrates and his…

Plato’s Phaedo, which is also known as On the Soul, is a dialogue that recalls the events right before the execution of Socrates. Socrates, who was charged for atheism and corrupting the youth, is the protagonist of the philosophical discussion. Socrates never wrote any of his ideas down, but it was his student Plato who wrote many of his philosophies in works. Some of Socrates’s ideas that are considered his most important are in the Phaedo, including his three arguments for the immortality of…