The Distinction Of Soul And Body In Socrates's Phaedo

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

The philosophy discussed in the Phaedo revolves around Socrates discussion of the existence and nature of the afterlife. One of the overarching themes in Phaedo is the soul’s immorality. The dialogue explores a number of arguments for the immortality of the soul to illustrate the concept of the afterlife where the soul is supposed to dwell following our deaths. Four essential arguments are put forth for the soul’s immortality. The four arguments are: The Opposites Argument, The Theory of Recollection, The Affinity Argument and The Argument from Form of Life.

According to Socrates one of the most important things that identify with human being is their desire. Socrates argues that desire that can change people minds quickly and very abnormally. The three-part division of the soul is crucial to Plato’s overall project of offering the same sort of explication of justice whether applied to societies or individuals.

Plato’s theory of the simplicity of the soul is seen in the Phaedo. Through the mouthpiece of Socrates, Plato argues for a simple soul which only has one true aim. He states that the soul only seeks truth and that all other senses and experiences are merely distractions through the soul being embodied ‘the soul reasons best when none of these senses troubles it, neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor pleasure, but when it is most by itself, taking leave of the body and as far as possible having no contact or association with it in its search for reality.’ (Plato, 1997, §65c). The simple soul can only aim to grasp the truth of reality which it gets closer to as man becomes closer to death. This is why, in Plato’s opinion, a philosopher in particular can

In this question we see the opposites theory presented in a more spiritual light. He explains that death comes from the prior existence of life, and life comes from the presence of soul. So, there for soul is on a continuous cycle of life and death. Since his argument states that everything in life comes from opposites why should the cycle of life and death be presented any differently? While the two opposites are clear one of the intermediates is much more abstract. “One of the two process or generations is visible. For surly the act of dying is visible.” The presence of death can be seen while the creation of life is less obvious. Socrates then outlines his belief of soul leaving the body after death. During which time the soul returns to a place of an existence before man. Socrates introduces this concept of a world beyond human exist where souls reside intermediately between the death of the vessel and the eventual “birth of the dead into the world of the living.” This theory aims to demonstrate how life works but constantly shifting between two opposites. If these rules are meant to apply to sleeping, waking and all the other accidents; why should they not apply to living and

One of the positive effects of such a belief regarding the soul and its existence after the body's physical death is that it can serve as motivation to lead a virtuous life. This fact is readily demonstrated within the speech and actions of Socrates, who attempted to lead a high life of virtue, reasoning, and thinking in order to protect his soul from any sort of debauchery which might affect it in the afterlife. Socrates' conception of the afterlife was somewhat as muddled as Plato's, during The Apology he claimed he knew nothing about it, yet he also asserts that it will either be a restful, lasting slumber or a state in which one has an enjoyable degree of communication with the

Socrates’ argument for why the soul is analogous to the city begins with an observation--that the city is comprised of individuals. The city is therefore a reflection of the characteristics of the individual. This observation allows Socrates to derive the characteristics of an individual from the characteristics of the city that had previously been discussed and established. However, this task is more difficult than it seems at first because of the differences between the soul and the city.

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.

One of the most popular works of the Greek philosopher, Plato, dramatically describes the last conversation Socrates had with his friends and students before his execution in 399 B.C. In the middle of the dialogue, one of Socrates’s disciples, Simmias describes his concern with Socrates’s argument that the soul, separate from the body, can survive even after the body’s death. Simmias finds this concept hard to believe and makes an analogy between a lyre and its attunement and the body and its soul to explain his distress. He describes the lyre as “physical, bodily, composite, earthy and akin to what is mortal,” just as the body, while the harmony or attunement is “invisible, without body, beautiful and divine” (Phaedo, 86b), just as the soul. Through that comparison, he makes the argument that just as the harmony cannot exist after the destruction of the lyre, a soul cannot exist after the destruction of its body.

In the “Do Minds Survive after Death” reading, Socrates claims that all true philosophers desire death. Socrates believed that the life of a philosopher is aimed at attaining true knowledge and he reasoned that the way to accomplish it is through thinking only or in other words by the separation of the soul from the body because the senses can be inaccurate and the body itself can be troublesome. The example he gives to support the claim of inaccuracy of the senses is that humans have never seen true beauty, however, they have imagined it. Socrates went so far as to say that the true nature of anything is never seen or perceived by the senses but it is something that humans came to know through thinking. Although, it is true that thinking is

“If the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal” (The Philosophical Journey 89). This states that since the soul has all knowledge integrated, one recollects this knowledge through situations in an individual’s life and use one’s reasoning. With the dialogues of the Meno and Phaedo, Plato discusses the ideas of recollection and immortality of the soul in general. As well, the Republic, through the three different situations shown, Plato shows the ideas of the forms and what is real and what is not.

In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates discusses three arguments conducive to the immortality of the soul. In this paper I will examine Socrates’ Cycle of opposites argument as well as his Exclusion of Opposites argument and how they appear to contradict one another, concluding with my own critical analysis of the arguments. In the Phaedo, Socrates introduces the Cycle of opposites Argument. This argument explains that Forms are immortal, and as the soul brings life, it also must not die.

Read the following in Plato's The Last Days of Socrates: Phaedo Wisdom and the Soul

The Phaedo is Plato’s attempt to convince the reader of the immortality of the soul using four main arguments. These include the argument of affinity, recollection, Forms and the law of opposites. In the final passage of the Phaedo, (Grube, 2002:102a-107b), Plato provides his ‘Final Proof’, despite seeming like the most conclusive argument it is not necessarily the most convincing. Plato has some good points and fair reasoning to believe in the immortality of the soul, however his arguments often seem to make large assumptions without any concrete backing. In this essay I will attempt to expose the flaws in Plato’s argument

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