Analysis Of ' Last Days '

Socrates has the various response to Simmons and Cebes when why things in life are the way they are. Cebes states that things are the way they are because physical cause but Socrates then disagree with things and says that “when I was a young man I was wonderfully keen on that wisdom which they call nature science … ( Grube pg. 134).Socrates second answer to Cebes argument that thing is that way because God wants it that way but Socrates disagrees with that.

In Phaedo, by Plato, Phaedo recounts an incident with Socrates. The story starts with Socrates opening up saying that Philosophers should not only accept death, but welcome it. After all, although the body will pass, the soul is able to live on because it is immortal. He uses a lot of his intuition to back up his claim, but the main rationale is the Argument of Affinity. He claims that the world is very binary. Things are either incorporeal and invisible, or not. The body is physical, visible and corporeal. Things like the body that are visible are part of the sensible world and do not last. The soul however is not. It is invisible and incorporeal. That is why Socrates believes the soul is immortal. Simmias counters Socrates claim bringing

Plato’s Phaedo is an early dialogue that is known as the last conversation Socrates has before before he is executed. In Phaedo, Socrates discusses the immorality of the soul through a series of arguments. I will explain two of these arguments, the Indestructibility Argument and the Argument from Opposites. One of the arguments Socrates makes in the defense of the soul’s immortality is that the soul lacks the parts to make it destructible. In order for something to be destroyed, it must be able to be taken apart (35).

He began by using the example of one’s soul. Socrates says that your soul will live on forever and it cannot be destroyed or damaged unlike your body, immortal. He believed that your soul was present during the previous generations and it will be present in the generations to come. He even says your soul has “been born often and has seen all things... there is nothing which it has not learned”(81d, Plato).

He believes he would be going against his beliefs and character if he chose to escape. The last dialogue is Phaedo, a beloved disciple of the great teacher. Socrates shows his belief of the immortality of the soul. This dialogue was the fourth and last detailing the final days of Socrates. Socrates presents four arguments for the immortality of the soul. First, there is the claim that the soul is made up of basic forms. Second, the fact that we are born with certain innate knowledge proves that the knowledge is eternal. Third, people generally agree the soul is different from the body. Fourth, the soul is by definition living and thus can’t die in any meaningful way. At the end of the dialogue, Socrates is executed by poison hemlock. Phaedo was right by his side until his death. Phaedo said that ,” although I was witnessing the death of someone who was my friend, I had no feeling of pity, for the man appeared happy both in manner and words, as he died nobly and without fear ” (p. 212).

To what extent Plato was imbued with the belief in the immortality of the human soul and the degree to which it was confirmed that belief with the singular death of Socrates? The booklet WHAT HAPPENS TO US WHEN WE DIE?, printed in 2006 by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, on page 5, that " A scholar and teacher of 70 years of age is accused of impiety and of attempting to corrupt the young minds with his teaching. Although it is a great defense before the jury, this conviction and death sentence, because it is biased against him. Just a few hours before his execution, the old master presented to the students gathered around a series of arguments to corroborate that the soul is immortal and that there is no need to be afraid of death.

In one of Plato’s famous dialogues Phaedo, Plato touches on some of the theories of Socrates that focus on the immortality of the soul. Plato explains four main arguments that attempt to prove that the soul is indeed immortal. After reviewing and analyzing the arguments given, I have come to the conclusion that Plato’s premises are not true. I believe that the arguments he offers are in some way invalid. In order to prove the validity of each discourse, I will evaluate each of the four arguments Plato presents.

His alternative explanation was that someone who really is proficient on a subject should be able to explain it to others. If they cannot explain the subjects, but can be lead to recall them to a point that they will be able to explain them; they must have acquired the knowledge in their earlier life that they failed to remember at the time of birth. Simmias and Cebes both agreed that socrates has successfully demonstrated that souls existed before birth but they continue to be skeptical that the soul still remains after death.

In this article by Tal Kopan he writes about how Ben Carson believes we are coming upon the end of days. Although, Carson believes we are coming upon the end of days he believes that we can change our course of direction to avoid this. According to cnn.com, “I think we have a chance to certainly do everything we can to ameliorate the situation. I would always be shooting for peace. I wouldn't just take a fatalist view of things.” Carson stated. This comment was made when he was asked if the end of days could be stopped or if it was prophesied. This article also made references to his controversial comments that were made this week. In which he said he would rather be honest than just saying what people wanted to hear so that he could

In a bid to explain the concept of immortality, Socrates employs the concept of opposites. He gives substantial examples which clearly depict the fact that for any object or property that claims to have been generated, it is attained through the law of opposites. To substantiate his statement, he indicates that if something was big at a given point, it must have been smaller at another given instance. In an explicit explanation, it suffices to indicate that Socrates meant that the current state of a given thing is an opposite of the state that it was at a given particular time. He uses this concept to show that life is a result of death. In this case, the living things are as a result of death which took place and once people undergo death,

In this conversation, they are separating and attempting to define and order the body and the soul based on importance. Socrates and Cebes agree that the body is mortal and sinful, and the soul is immortal and divine; separating upon the death of the body. Socrates says “Look at it also this way: when the soul and the body are together, nature orders the one to be subject and to be ruled, and the other to rule and be master.” Aristotle may argue that the combination of body and soul is what makes an entire human, a distinct third being, with no one mastering the other. Socrates and Cebes are separating two parts of the human and failing to acknowledging the one whole as an individual and complete entity.

Socrates makes the assertion that the soul is an immortal entity that survives through many generations and bodies. He explains that there is the visible and the invisible realms in life. The visible realm is everything that we can see, in which things exist that take forms. In the visible realm, there may be a bundle of equal sized sticks, that take the form of equality. When you see the bundle, you see that it looks equal. But, someone else may not see those sticks as equal, and therefore the visible realm is imperfect. The visible realm is ever changing, and can be perceived differently by all who experience it. The invisible on the other hand, is where the forms exist. A form is the true identity of things, like equality for example. When

Socrates explains that philosophy is the preparation for death. In other words, Socrates has spent the majority of his life preparing for the separation of his body and soul. “…the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (101). He says that because our souls are immortal, we should embrace death and look forward to what it has to offer for our souls. To confirm this belief, Socrates again states, “…the freedom and separation of the soul from the body is called death…those who practice philosophy in the right way, we say, who always want to free the soul; and this release and separation of the soul from the body is the preoccupation of the philosophers” (104). A philosopher’s ambition, when looking toward death, is to free the soul from its body; therefore, when one dies, the soul lives on and the body does not.

Throughout Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates invokes different arguments to portray specific ideas about the immortality of the soul. One of the arguments in which Socrates brings about is the cyclical argument. The cyclical argument, also referred to as the principle of opposites, connects the core ideas of the body and the mind to later prove that the soul is an immortal entity. Forms are ever changing in and of themselves to create the cycle in which Socrates explains the basis of all things. It is through knowledge of the Forms, and the existence of the body and the soul that Socrates enhances the cyclical argument to demonstrate the concepts leading to the immortality of the soul.

In this dialogue Socrates and the philosophers explore several arguments for this idea of an immortal soul. These arguments were to illustrate and verify that death is not the dying of body and soul collectively, but when the body dies the soul continues to live on. Socrates offers readers four main arguments: The Cyclical Argument, which is the idea that forms are fixed and external. The soul is the sole purpose of life in this argument, and therefore cannot die and it is also to be seen as virtually never-ending. Next is The Theory of Recollection, which insists that at birth everyone has knowledge that the soul experienced in another life. Meaning that the soul would have had to be existent before birth to bear this said knowledge.