Phaedo Notes

(Originally Written September 9, 2006 in History I)

Phaedo - Plato

1. Suicide is always immoral
2. Death is not to be feared
-Philosophers are concerned with the soul
-The soul is in bondage to the body
-Death brings release to the soul
3. The philosopher "practices death"
4. The immortality of the Soul

-Argument from natural cycles:
1)Things are always generated by their opposites
2)Life generates death
3)Therefore, death generates life.

-Argument from recollection
We have knowledge of absolute truths, but we didn't get them from existence. Thus, the soul must be preexistent and if it is preexistent it ought to be past-existent as well.

-Argument from the soul simplicity
The soul is a simple substance and cannot be broken down and therefore is indestructible.

-Argument from the theory of forms
1)A thing participates in forms.
2)That particular thing cannot participate in opposite forms.
3)The soul participates in the form of life.
4)Therefore, the soul cannot participate in death and thus, cannot die.

5. The nature of the afterlife
-The destiny of impure souls is wandering and reincarnation
-The destiny of the law abiding souls is reincarnation as social animals or people.
-The destiny of the philosopher is wisdom and the next life.

6. Objections
-Simmias' atunement objections: Maybe the soul is just an attunement of the body's parts (attunement = a harmony)

Socrates' reply to Simmias: This view cannot account for three things:
1) The preexistence of the soul
2) Goodness
3) Body-Soul conflict

-Cebes' objection: "Tailor analogy": The soul has been in many bodies, but this body is the soul's last and the soul will die with this body's death.

Socrates' reply to Cebes is his fourth argument for the immortality of the soul, an appeal to the forms.