Phaedo
Join now to read essay Phaedo
Phaedo is a dialogue of which Socrates attempts to demonstrate the immortality of the rational soul. He uses four arguments for the souls immortality in order to show that there is an afterlife in which the soul exists following death. Socrates referes to Forms in one section of the dialoge to build up his arguments.
Socrates first argument about the immortality of the soul, is that all things come from their own inverse. His argument is stating that since life is the opposite of death, they must go in a cycle. We die at the end of our life, but we were given life from previously dead souls; therefore we are making a cycle.
Socrates begins this argument by making a statement, then asking Cebes for his opposition, “For if living things were generated from other sources than death, and were to die, the result is inevitable that all things would be consumed by death. Is it not so?”(72d). This argument alone is not enough to convince me of immortality of the soul; although I agree with Cebes as to accepting this, simply because I find it hard to think of an argument to oppose this.
The theory of recollection is the next argument Socrates uses for the immortality of the soul. Socrates says