Socrates and Plato in Phaedo

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Socrates a classical Greek philosopher and character of Plato’s book Phaedo, defines a philosopher as one who has the greatest desire of acquiring knowledge and does not fear death or the separation of the body from the soul but should welcome it. Even in his last days Socrates was in pursuit of knowledge, he presents theories to strengthen his argument that the soul is immortal. His attempts to argue his point can’t necessarily be considered as convincing evidence to support the existence of an immortal soul.
Socrates first argument is on the Theory of Opposites in which he discusses the nature of opposite things and beings. Socrates makes his claim that everything that is, comes from its opposite being. “If something smaller comes to be it will come from something larger before, which became smaller” (71a). What he is trying to explain is that something that is considered to be “smaller” requires it to once have been “larger” previously, so its size decreased in time. Just as large and small, Socrates compares the matter of life and death as being opposites in which the soul is what moves on. The issue with this reasoning is that unlike moving from opposites such as small to large or large to small, where an object may increase or decrease, life to death is not a reversible process. Life can move to death but it cannot reverse and move from death to life. Life cannot come from death, and though life is contrary to death it is not the contradicting opposite, and it cannot be considered to follow the Theory of Opposites. It is practically impossible for something to be alive and dead at the same time, so the soul that transfers from life to death it must be able to exist within the body or out of it. Socrates believes that th...

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...rms, life and death do not exist in peace but rather one is more dominant than the other.
Socrates is unable to prove his argument that the soul is immortal through the theories of Opposites, Recollection, and Forms because he is unable to explain his reasoning to give a legitimate answer. Although he had given enough evidence to try and prove his point, the evidence given was not convincing enough. His idea often fell through when he tried to relate back to the theories because the possibility that the soul lives on forever leads to so many questions that all don’t necessarily have a reasonable answer or an answer at all, therefore Socrates idea that the soul is immortal is false.

Works Cited

"Phaedo, by Plato." : Phaedo. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
Plato, and G. M. A. Grube. "Phaedo." Five Dialogues. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2002. 93-
154. Print.

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