Essay about Don't Be Afraid to Die in Socrates' Phaedo

Socrates was a man in Athens, who set out in search for truth and knowledge. In doing this, he managed to anger some of his fellow men by exposing their ignorance. In 399 BC, he was arraigned on three different charges. He was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens. He was, also, indicted on charges of heresy and treason. As well, charged with being an atheist, not believing in the Gods. According to some people, Socrates deserved to die and to others his death made him a martyr. Using several sources, including The Apology, I will enlighten readers with the reasons behind some people’s beliefs that he died a martyr, in addition to, the beliefs of others who say Socrates had a touch of arrogance in insensitivity and deserved the death sentence, hence, the confessor.

In Phaedo Socrates elaborates on the nature of death before his execution. In The Apology, Socrates was sentenced to death by poison by a jury of his peer for committing atheism and corrupting the Athenian youth (Mallik). The story is told from one of Socrates’ students, Phaedo. Engaging in a dialogue with his students, Socrates argues the various ways the immortal soul can continue in the afterlife. Phaedo relates this dialogue to many other students of Socrates as well as the general public.

He easily disproved all the charges that Meletus held against Socrates and he managed to stay calm through the trial. He was sentence to death before he entered the trail because he himself stated that was despised by many and that it would probably end with a verdict of death. Socrates gained many enemies by showing them that they did not know as much as they claimed and that they often knew very little. This lead to the death of Socrates, but I felt that they could of chosen another form of punishment. The verdict of death was unnecessary and the trail could of fine Socrates a certain amount of money, but he would of not been able to pay of the fine because as he stated that he was poor. After his death verdict Socrates knew that there was no way to escape death, but he did not fear death because he did not know if death was a blessing or a curse. He strongly believed in death being a cure to the body from all the illness of the world. He did not regret any of his actions during and after the trail. Additionally, he thanked everyone who voted to acquit him of all charges and he showed no ill will towards those who voted for his

In The Trial and Death of Socrates the philosopher, Plato, writes in a dialogical and argumentative style in which he attempts to describe and defend Socrates. In the Apology, Socrates argues against the people and the city in his defense against impiety and corruption of the youth. However, he is unjustly prosecuted by the people. Thus, the Crito follows with his rationale regarding his willingness to die regardless of the injustice of the law. While the dialectical tension driving Socrates’ view in the Apology and in the Crito both connect to the idea of obedience, the views contrast in the essence of obedience itself, as Socrates’ views regard different natures of the matter. As a result, his death is the only resolution to the tension given that I agree with Socrates’ idea that an unexamined life is not worth living.

In this week’s reading, The Apology, Socrates expresses some strong views on wisdom and death. This essay discusses some of these views, specifically in regards to wisdom despite Socrates professions of not being wise. In Socrates professions of not being wise, he tells a story of his quest to find one wiser then himself. Socrates explains that as he has met with men of various professions that thought themselves to be wise and that were considered to be wise by others.

Both philosophers and non-philosophers stand on a level of equality with respect to death. There are no experts on death, for there is nothing to know about it. Even those who study the death process have no edge on the rest of us. We are all equals in thinking about death, and we all begin and end thinking about it from a position of ignorance. One trouble with discussing this topic is the instinctive fear of death. We tend to avoid death in our thoughts and actions. However, if we could forget our fears for a minute, we could see more clearly how interesting the concept actually is from a more detached point of view. One of the most interesting views on death comes from an ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates. In the texts that are going to be analyzed in this essay, Apology and Phaedo, are the retellings of words and thoughts of Socrates by Plato, a pupil and admirer of Socrates. Both texts lecture about the topic of death and though both are the thoughts of Socrates at different times of his life, they have similar and contrasting views on the outlook of death.

No, Socrates did not die in vein. The simple fact that he is a prominent figure to this very day is enough to prove this, but more importantly he had a great influence over Greece and his death inflamed this influence furthermore. Socrates also inspired many other philosophers; from Plato, to Aristotle, we can find Socrates ideas embedded into their philosophy. Many of his principles are practiced and studied by many different modern groups. He especially has gained credit for his act of standing up against an established central idea, even though it was cause for certain death. Socrates knew he would pay the ultimate price, but also he realized the good that it would do for the progeny of our world.

If this does not happen, the soul would not be able to acquire truth and wisdom. The body fills us with unwanted thoughts or desires such as food, sex, fancy clothes, all of this work against our soul. This acts as a barrier against the real world we live in and does not allow a human person to be true to self. Socrates believes that different souls experience different fates after death and dependent upon how they detached their soul from the body and the life they lead on Earth be. A philosopher can look forward to a good afterlife because once separated from the body, their soul can become all that it can be without any interference from the body. This is why the philosopher can look forward to a good afterlife as compared to the person who cannot separate their soul from the body. Everything that doesn’t hold the philosopher's soul back, like bodily pleasures, holds back the person who cannot do this. Socrates says, “there is good hope that on arriving where I am going, if anywhere, I shall acquire what has been our chief preoccupation in our past life, so that the journey that is now ordered for me is full of good hope, as it is also for any other man who believes that his mind has been prepared and, as it were, purified.” This means that with the separation of the soul from the body, there is a purification that takes place. Once this purification

Socrates does not fear death because he doesn’t know if death is good or evil. Socrates talks bad about death when he says “the fear of death amounts to the simply thinking one is wise when one is not.” You see Socrates confusion of how he doesn’t know if death is good or bad when he says, “And let us also reflect upon how good a reason there is to hope that death is a good thing.” The other reason why Socrates doesn’t fear death is because he feels as though fearing death is a kind of false wisdom. Socrates' wisdom comes from acknowledging that he does not know what he does not know, and his acknowledgment that he does not know what awaits him in the afterlife leads him not to fear it.

On the day of Socrates’ execution, conducted by the state of Athens, he has a number of friends and philosophers join him in his cell to discuss his perceptions on death and his soul in the afterlife. During his final conversation preceding his passing, Socrates presents four arguments for the soul’s immortality and suggests that each genuine philosopher should not be fearful of death, but should instead look forward to it. While I agree with Socrates on the premise that the soul is immortal, I do not feel that any of his arguments are sufficient enough to prove this belief to be true. Plato’s Phaedo allegedly recounts these events and departing conversations with Socrates. Socrates’ first argument regarding the soul’s immortality focuses

Plato’s Apology was supposed to represent Socrates’ trial for his being a nuisance and corrupting the youth. Socrates defended himself by saying that he was merely performing service to the god that said that he was wiser than anyone else. This defense did not work, and he lost the trial. Socrates remained defiant during the sentencing portion of the trial, which led to him be sentenced to death, and as such he had to face his mortality. Socrates viewed death as not being an unscrupulous entity. In this paper, I will explain his two meanings of death, difference between both meanings, and argue the one I believe in.

In his final moments, Socrates continues to illustrate his views on true life to his distraught friends. He stands by these views as he refuses to escape his own death because his belief is that death cannot harm him; only loss of integrity can. This choice, however, causes strife for the people in Socrates’s life because in the absence of him, they are, in their own eyes, worse off. However, this is not harm to the self as Socrates views it, therefore, by his death, harm has not reached anyone’s self. In this way Socrates demonstrates that no one should lose integrity for the sake of someone else’s state of living. Death is not the end of a soul, and after death a soul will maintain its integrity. If this is true, Socrates

The soul was the most important thing according to socrates. His beilf that our souls existed before brith and is something that is immaterial, invisible, and immortal. “the soul is more like the invisible than the body, and the body more like the visible” (79c). He gives us an example , that oppostite are genterated by oppostites meaning to die you have to live and to live you have to die. This concludes to socrates argument that in order to have a body you have to have a soul and vs versa. “If the souls of the living come only from the dead, then the souls of men who have died must exist in the underworld” 70D leading back to the first point of recollection it impiles strongly that our soul must have exist before and all our knowledge is

In the great dialogues of Plato Plato presents the account of Socrates’ untimely death. Crito had arranged for Socrates to escape from prison but after he and Crito discuss what the outcome of that action would be he refuses, and eventually dies as a result of that decision. Socrates made the right choice in his decision to not resist his fate, because those who would have helped him would have rendered themselves liable to a similar fate, he would have had to live as a fugitive and would have had his same problem with the authorities wherever he went, and he also would have removed any power the Athenian courts ever had.

His friends question that the soul remains intact as one entity after death. Socrates clarifies that the soul belongs to the first category, the invisible, while the body belongs to the visible. Socrates then reminds his friends that every thing is itself, and does not change: Equal Itself, Beauty Itself, Being Itself. These, he states, fall under the invisible, and do not change or dissipate. Thus, Socrates states, “the Soul is most similar to what’s divine, deathless, intelligible, single-formed, indissoluble and always keeps to the self-same condition” (80B) meaning it must remain as one unit. Socrates enlightens his friends that the soul is enslaved to the body. Because death is a releasing of the soul from the body, this is an escape from enslavement. A soul that does not properly detach from the body, because it is too involved with earthly and body matters, will wander as a ghost until it exists in another body. The soul of a true philosopher, on the other hand, has no reason to fear his escape and will properly detach to be free in a heaven with other enlightened, philosophical, wise