Analysis Of 'Opposites In Phaedo Socrates'

Hence, Socrates concludes “the living come from the dead in this way no less than the dead from the living, and, if that is so, it seems to be a sufficient proof that the souls of the dead must be somewhere whence they can come back again” (Phaedo 72a) and as a result, “if anyone recollects anything, he must have known it before” (Phaedo 73c). Socrates uses the example of Equal to demonstrate that we knew the essence of Equal before birth. Knowing the essence allows people to “[realize] that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this” (Phaedo 75a). Recollection in life can be extrapolated that humans lose a

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

Socrates states that everything comes into existence from out of its opposite. For example, a tall man becomes tall only because he was short before. Similarly, death is the opposite of life, and so living things come to be out of dead things and vice versa. This implies that there is a perpetual cycle of life and death, so that when we die we do not stay dead, but come back to life after a period of time. Socrates mentions an ancient theory

In The Phaedo, one of Socrates’ aims is to convince us that our souls existed prior to our birth. In making this argument, he claims that we had some knowledge of imperceptible things prior to our birth, and that through “recollection” of our pre-birth knowledge of imperceptible things, we are able to perceive certain qualities of things like equality beginning after our birth. Socrates’ argument begins by defining recollection as when someone ‘perceives one thing, knows that thing, and also thinks of another thing of which the knowledge is not the same but different’ (73c). Socrates asks that we consider our perception of equal things, such as sticks and sticks or stones and stones. He claims there is “Equal itself” or the Form of Equality, which is unmistakably equal at all times (74a). Once the Form of Equality, is agreed upon, Socrates claims that “as long as the sight of one thing makes you think of another, whether it be similar or dissimilar,” you are recollecting (74d). Socrates then concludes that because we are able to make judgments about equal things through perception, we must have knowledge of the Form of Equality prior to making these judgments about equal and unequal things, and we are able to recognize these things as equal or unequal by recalling the form of equality. Socrates’ argument begins with the idea that our souls were acquainted with all forms prior to our births, and he outlines an argument that illustrates his Theory of Recollection, concluding

Plato uses Socrates’ Argument from Opposites to show that a living being cycles from being dead to being alive, but this falls flat because we must rely on the idea that there is another realm for were the dead souls must reside. “Let’s consider it, perhaps, in this way: do the souls of human beings exist in Hades when they have died, or do they not?” (Plato 17) This shows that their belief in an immortal soul requires that one believe that there is the existence of a place called Hades, without any other interpretation from either Socrates or Cebes. Piper would disagree with this idea because it relies on a religious belief, which can be related to the idea of the modern Christian Philosopher. “The following reflections will nonetheless consider-third-only those situations in which the philosopher is also explicitly a believer who openly accepts the truth of a sacred tradition and consciously accepts the truth of a sacred tradition and consciously tries to be aware of it in his reasoning.” (Pieper 112) Here Pieper talks about how a philosopher must be careful of his faith and make sure it does not affect his reasoning, which is what is happening to Socrates and Cebes as they reason their way through the existence of the soul. They attribute a piece of their reasoning to a potentially mythical place that the current Greek religion believes in, without considering if there are alternatives to such

Socrates explains that in his year of learning and questioning the world around him he has found that everything has a beginning and an end. However, often that end is not an end but a new beginning. Socrates explains this by illustrating how a tall man is the opposite of a short man, yet the tall man had to

As we discussed previously Theory of Forms, states that everything in the world fits into two categories, the abstract universals, things such as beauty itself, equality itself, and piety itself and the second category is concrete particulars, things that exist in space and time, such as sunsets, music, and people. However Socrates derives his confidence from a combination of the argument of opposites and the theory of forms. This Argument from the Theory of Forms for the immortality of the soul: If we assume the theory of forms is true, and there is a form of Life itself, then souls are the sources of life because they participate in the form of life, then souls cannot participate in the opposing form of life, death, at the same time, if the principle of non-contradiction is true. Now since death is the opposite of life, souls can’t participate in it, therefore souls are immortal. Socrates makes these claims to comfort his friends and followers who are concerned

Socrates begins to dissolve the paradox by stating that the soul is in fact immortal. Our souls go through a process of anamnesis which is simply just recollecting previous information. To prove that our souls have past experiences from multiple lives, he presents Meno with a scenario involving a slave boy and a simple geometric inquiry. In short, Socrates tries to prove that even a slave boy who appears to have no knowledge, can work out a simple geometric problem. The slave boy at first gives a few wrong answers and Socrates had to ask follow up questions to bring the slave boy to the right answer, however in no way did Socrates give the slave boy the answer – from his recollection of past experiences, the slave boy managed to correct himself and come to the right answer on his own. Therefore, we have pre-existing information in our souls and it is only a matter of remembering past information.

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.

avenues for the philosophical life. Socrates defines death as the release of the soul from the body . This definition implies both a view of death as placing distance between the soul and the body during this life and a complete separation at the moment of death. The responsibility of the philosopher is to seek liberation here in this life and, in so doing, to prepare for the afterlife, as preparation for both the literal and figurative deaths coalesce into a single activity.

I am now going to defend Socrates position with my own thoughts and opinions along with

Socrates 's (Plato 's) Principle of Opposites states that "the same thing cannot do or undergo opposite things; not, at any rate, in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, at the same time." (436c) This is significant because it allows him to provide an avenue for proving that the soul contains more than one part via the use of internal conflict. He states that if an instance of opposites should occur, it would not be because the same thing was influenced in two opposing ways simultaneously, but because multiple things of a similar type were being influenced. He uses a top to illustrate. A top has two axes, and the top can be in motion in one way while remaining still in the other (436e). It cannot both be moving and still in the vertical sense, nor can it be both moving and still in the horizontal (he calls it circumference), but it can be moving in one way while still in the other. Thus, the top spins, but doesn 't waver or move around (436e). He moves the example into the realm of agency. This principle of opposities applies also to the archer, he says, whose one hand is pulling and the other pushing in order to launch the arrow (439c).

In Phaedo Socrates claims that the soul exists somewhere after the body dies. He uses the argument of opposites to make his claim. Socrates believes that for something to “be” it must have been something else before or come from something. He gives Cebes examples of thing that are generated as a result from its opposite. “when anything becomes greater it must inevitably have been smaller and then have become greater.” He uses this example to say that being “greater” is derived from having been “smaller” at some point; and that in between being “greater” and “smaller” there are a lot of variables. After giving several examples to Cebes and Cebes agreeing to most outcomes, Socrates asks Cebes if there is an opposite to living, Cebes responds

The passage I have chosen from Plato’s Apology is the main passage to which Socrates believed in until his death and gave the basis for his life and they way he chose to live his life. It is this passage that makes

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.