soul and body theories Essay

Socrates objects Simmias’ claims and refutes Harmony Theory many ways, but the one I find most notable is that Socrates believes that the soul is the master of the human body and directs and controls the body. Since the soul is eternal and the body is not, the soul controls the body throughout the entirety of its life. Socrates comments, “further, of all parts of a man, can you mention any other part that rules him than his soul, especially if it is a wise soul?” (Plato 132). Because it has this power, it tells the body what to do, where to move, and how to act. This is different than the harmony and the lyre. For example, “on the other hand, we previously agreed that if the soul were a harmony, it would never be out of tune with the

Socrates is believed to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time and he is credited as being the founder of western philosophy. This paper will explain some of his views to the most fundamental questions of today’s age. These questions will include topics about morality, the human condition, solution, and death. After Socrates’ views on these topics are explained, a critique will be done on his answers. I will start out by explaining exactly who Socrates is, and the time that he lived in. To start out, we will first examine Socrates’ view on morality.

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.

The portrayal of Socrates, through the book “the trial and death of Socrates” is one that has created a fairly controversial character in Western history. In many ways, Socrates changed the idea of common philosophy in ancient Greece; he transformed their view on philosophy from a study of why the way things are, into a consideration man. Specifically, he analyzed the virtue and health of the human soul. Along side commending Socrates for his strong beliefs, and having the courage to stand by those convictions, Socrates can be commended for many other desirable characteristics. Some of those can include being the first martyr to die for his philosophical beliefs and having the courage to challenge indoctrinated cultural norms is part of

Today, one of the leading problems discussed in politics is healthcare. America constantly struggles with their healthcare system to make it affordable and accessible to communities. In the twentieth century this same problem also existed, creating one of the most well-known African American activist groups in America. In the book Body and Soul by Alondra Nelson, it discusses the social inequalities of the healthcare system in America and how the Black Panther Party fought against medical discrimination for African Americans. Nelson talks about how the Black Panther Party went from the role of protecting black citizens to a larger political role in African American health care. The significance of this book applies to medical sociology in many ways and is essential to the understanding of providing better healthcare to future generations. In the following book review, it includes a summary of each chapter to highlight the main points, some of the very many medical sociology concepts that could be applied, and lastly an evaluation of the book as a whole and its significance to our course.

In the Phaedo, Plato presents a conversation between Socrates and two of his interlocutors, Simmias and Cebes, as they discuss the immortality of the soul during Socrates’ last hours before his death in the jail at Athens. At 70a, Cebes offers his worry that upon death the soul “…is destroyed and dissolved…and is dispersed like breath or smoke.” The rest of the dialogue consists of a debate between the three men as they consider the form and indissolubility of the soul. In this paper I will show that though Socrates’s position does not definitively explain his claims about the soul’s immortality, which he lays out in the Resemblance Argument, he does successfully respond to Simmias’ Lyre Objection, which itself offers a reasonable but still not infallible objection to Socrates’ original argument.

Throughout the course of the Phaedo, Socrates argues that the soul is immortal. Because he believes that his soul will live on forever, Socrates claims that he is not afraid to die. Socrates was sentenced to death and due to the fact that he took the poison earlier than when was necessary, many believe that he committed suicide. Contrary to what may be presumed about Socrates’ death, I will argue that he is a martyr and did not commit suicide.

Socrates third argument for the immortality of the soul is The Affinity Argument. This argument does not prove the immortality of the soul, it only shows that it is somewhat likely. Socrates makes a distinction between things that are immaterial, invisible, and immortal, and things that are material, visible, and decomposable. The soul falls in the former category while the body falls in the latter category. This distinction suggests that the soul should be able to survive death. The idea is that the soul has a likeness to a higher level of reality.

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.

Socrates uses a three-fold approach to his argument rationalizing the existence of souls. First, he examines the relationship between opposites. That is, you must have full context or understanding of the whole of something in order to take meaning of its parts. If, for example, you were to drink a glass of cold water, you only know that it is cold because you are familiar with the scope of the properties of hot and cold relative to one another. Additionally, he identified a cycle or transition of states that takes place in which one state begets it's opposite. The transition between sleeping and waking is a good example of this. In order to be asleep, you must have once been awake and vice versa. He argued similarly that in order to be dead,

Socrates is a widely renowned teacher, who has taught and demonstrated a variety of lessons that regard how he views the world. Socrates has described his view on morality, purpose, death, and the ultimate. He has spoken about these views through multiple texts including The Last Days of Socrates and they have been interpreted through the text Socrates by George Rudebusch. Through these worldviews, Socrates has given people the opportunity to expand their wisdom and question the world around them.

The inner life is a course of consciousness of such a sort that it would be foolish to suggest that the mind whose life is that course might be unaware of what is passing it down.

On the contrary Socrates believes that the soul is in fact immortal and if one wants to become free of pain they way to do so is to exempt themselves from the physical pleasures of the world.

As Plato advocates that soul belongs to different order from body, so it cannot be set alongside the body as homogeneous entity. The soul’s penchant is towards another world. It becomes evident, why the senses are envisaged, not as windows but as bars, since so far as the physical nature of man is concerned it is not just a matter of noting, ontologically, the finite character of its existence, but rather one making an ethical and religious value-judgment on this earthly life form the viewpoint of higher destiny. Only when the soul has undergone an inner transformation and been duly prepared for this it can looks at the body in a fresh light, as it were, and so discover as meaningful affinity between soul and body, which serves to orientate man towards the higher reality.