The Recollection Theory Of Death

Considering the arguments from Plato’s Phaedo argue: “Death is not the end and we ought not fear it.” Souls are immortal and continue to live after the body has died. The theories of recollection and opposites are sensible and Socrates can justify them.

The Recollection Theory is an argument Socrates brought up many times before. This theory is evidence that souls have existed before this current life. Cebes describes this theory in Phaedo as Socrates has described it many times before, “we recollect now we must have learned at some time before; which is impossible unless our souls existed some-where before they entered the human shape. So in that way too it seems likely that the soul is immortal” (Plato 137). When we learn something “new”

This theory describes relationships between all things and how they relate to one another. “The living have come from the dead no less than the dead from the living… souls of the dead must exist in some place from which they are reborn” (136). Socrates explains that souls are immortal and there is a never-ending cycle of living and dying, to live one must have died and to die one must have lived. No matter what something is, there is always an opposite. The opposite of “being alive” is “being dead”. If someone is not alive than they are dead and if they are not dead than they are alive. Something with an opposite replies on its opposites existence to exist. Without it, it would not exist at all. Although I find the theory of opposites confusing, it is logical. Socrates stated that if something becomes bigger than it must have been smaller ergo if something becomes smaller than it was once bigger. Opposites are the reason for everythings existence. Life and death, sleeping and waking, weaker and stronger, are all opposites, one ceases to exist without its opposite. I cannot think of a word that can falsify this theory. Socrates understood what he was talking about and had evidence to back up his theories, he could usually refute others when they countered