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Phaedo

Phaidōn (Φαίδων)

Plato · c. 385–375 BCE · Short (under 150 pages)

4.0 from 2 reviews · 23 views

DeathGreek & RomanPlatonism
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What it is

Set in the prison on the day Socrates is executed, the Phaedo is narrated by Phaedo, who was present, to Echecrates. Socrates explains why a philosopher should not fear death, since philosophy is a practice for dying, the separation of soul from body. He then offers several arguments that the soul is immortal: opposites come from opposites, so the living come from the dead; learning is recollection of Forms known before birth; the soul resembles the unchanging Forms more than the body does; and the soul, which brings life, cannot admit death. Simmias objects that the soul might be like the attunement of a lyre, Cebes that it might outlast many bodies and still wear out. Socrates replies with an account of his own intellectual development and his turn to Forms as causes. The dialogue ends with a myth about the true earth and an understated account of his death.

Why read it

It holds the classic arguments for the soul's survival together with objections still taken seriously, and its final pages are among the most moving in philosophy.

Where to start

Begin with the opening scene and the claim that philosophy is practice for dying, then read the objections of Simmias and Cebes before deciding how well the final argument answers them.

Original text in the public domain; free translations exist online

Talking about Plato

Reviews

  1. Aoife Brennan

    I expected the Christian idea of the soul and found something stranger: a soul that existed before birth and learns by remembering. Our seminar spent a whole week on the final argument, the one about the soul bringing life, and we disagreed about whether it proves anything. What stays with me is Socrates warning his friends not to start hating arguments just because some have failed them.

  2. Nadia Haddad

    I read this as a palliative nurse and an Epicurean sympathiser, so I am not Plato's ideal reader. The arguments for immortality did not persuade me; the affinity argument in particular felt like wishful thinking dressed as logic. But Cebes's objection, that a soul might survive several bodies and still finally wear out, is wonderfully honest, and the death scene is written with a restraint I wish more families were allowed.