Phaedo Outline -2 PDF

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Summary

HW outline regarding a reading by Phaedo.
Dr. Morelli ...

Description

Phaedo by Plato Overall, the dialogue begins with Echecrates and Phaedo discussing the death of Socrates which had just recently occurred. Pheado was one of the lucky few to see and witness Socrates’ final moments. So he goes on to describe how it perspired to Echecrates. Ultimately the whole discussion is around how our souls are immortal and therefore that no one, especially not Socrates himself, should be afraid of death. And so Socrates gives four main reasons for how the soul is immortal and how afterlife always follows death. After this discussion, Socrates takes his bath, says his final goodbyes and peacefully drinks the poison. 1. The first argument (Argument of Opposites) discusses the ancient theory that our souls come back so that we can be born again. Yet if our souls disappeared forever then we would have no souls at rebirth. As the argument goes, if there is death then there must be birth. And if it is the same soul that is dying, yet being born again, then our souls must be eternal and forever. 2. The second argument (Theory of Recollection) describes, an earlier Socrates statement, that learning is simply just recollection of what is already known. For example, if someone has the knowledge of Equal, then when they ‘first’ see Equal they will be able to recognize it. But if they had no previous knowledge of Equal, then they would not know what is or is not Equal. So therefore, for us to have previous knowledge then our souls must have been from our previous life. And for our souls to have intelligence they must have also existed apart from the body. 3. The third argument (Affinity Argument) portrays the visible and invisible aspects of the world. The body is the type of visible, as we can see, touch and feel it. And with being invisible comes growth and decay. Our visible bodies grow with age, yet they also decay/become destroyed with age. Yet the soul is invisible, unseen to the human eye. So therefore, after the body decays and is blown away, it must instead rather rid its self of the dirty body and live forever with the gods. 4. The fourth argument (The Final Argument) illustrates that ideas (Forms) are the cause of everything in the world, as we know it. These ideas are the greatest and truest version of what our world is, nothing can beat it. For example, snow is always cold as fire is always hot. And no matter how little snow you have, it will never emit heat or become hot. Just like no matter how little fire you have, it will never freeze anything or make it cold. And the same goes for the soul and the body. A body is useless without a soul, but with a soul it is full of life. Therefore, our souls are always full of life and can not be of the opposite, death. So our souls are life and can not be death, so therefore they must live forever. Personally, I agree with everything Socrates said, although it was a little confusing at times and took multiple reads to understand. Being a Catholic, I have always believed that our souls are the ones that live forever and go to Heaven. Just like how Socrates believes our souls live forever and are reborn with us, over and over again. 1. Well if the soul is invisible, how would we ever know if it dies or not? We can not see whether a soul is alive or not? 2. If knowledge is simply the recollection of previous knowledge, then how was anything ever discovered? Not even gravity was discovered at Socrates time, so then how did Newton discover gravity?

3. Say one dies a horrible death of disease or cancer, is just the body damaged or is the soul as well? And if the soul is damaged, is it reborn damaged or new again?...