Phaedo, the Trial and Death of Plato's Teacher - Book Report/Review Example

Phaedo by Plato al Affiliation) At the beginning of Phaedo, one notices that Echecretes inquires from Phaedo to tell himof the death of Socrates. This gives Phaedo a chance to remember his friend Socrates and the final hours they had while Socrates was still alive. (Eliot, C. W., Jowett, B., Crossley, H., & Long, G., 1937) Phaedo notes that, though the death was astonishing experience, he never had pity regarding it, considering that Socrates had happily and bravely faced the death without being afraid of the unknown. At the point, Phaedo takes the opportunity to emphasize on the absence of Plato on the occurrence due to illness. Prior to Socrates’ death, Phaedo together with other friends had constantly visited Socrates in jail. They made those moments to discus new things which included; why Socrates thought that it was wrong to kill one’s self. . (Eliot, C. W., Jowett, B., Crossley, H., & Long, G., 1937) His argument was based on the fact that man was a possession of gods and therefore had no right to commit suicide, as this would make gods angry if one of their possessions had taken their lives by themselves. Socrates believes that this should only happen if it is necessary. This position is however is challenged by Cebes, who notices that wise people should always sought to stay next to wiser people, and so by death, they ceases to stay next to wiser people. (Eliot, C. W., Jowett, B., Crossley, H., & Long, G., 1937)This means that death should be avoided by all means. But Cebes argument is refuted by Plato when Plato notes that it is agreeable that death is a separation of the mind soul from the body, and that the body inhibits mind and this justifies the argument that a philosopher faces death everyday and therefore should not fear death at all. The discussion of the two men takes a different twist when they choose to discuss what exactly death means. And Socrates gives much detail about what Plato believes to be the equality of a soul. He points that the soul has the ability to reason and to think and those capacities on their own have the ability to grasp objects that are deemed to be relevant and for that matter, no thought under any circumstance would be reached by any sense of the body. This is the point where Plato sharply differs with the Socrates. Plato believed that attainment of knowledge could be in relation to experience. Socrates however felt that; by death, one would be separating the soul from the body, and this would therefore help them move closer and closer to knowledge. In reading the text further, Cebes informs Socrates that all the things he said were excellent, except that he thought men would find it hard to believe his argument about the soul. Those men believe that after the soul has left the body, it would be nowhere and would only be destroyed and dissolved at the time of death. Cebes seeks more clarity on what Socrates means based on these facts. Socrates accepts the challenge presented by Cebes which leads him to make a discussion about immortality of the soul. At this point, Socrates relies on two arguments that he uses to support the claim he fronts. The first argument is the argument from recollection. According to Socrates, the soul existed before birth and it is from then that the soul would eventually learn all that could be learnt from the Forms. He notes that at birth, the things that people had initially learnt are forgotten and this makes individuals to know so little. Individuals therefore must learn with time as they grow through recollection of the prior knowledge they had until they are able arrive at a true belief, which according to Socrates, is a step away from knowledge. It is therefore only through death that individuals are able to achieve the knowledge they had before birth. The second part of this argument is that the souls exist after death. To validate this argument, Socrates constructs a logical proof. By this, he meant that opposite comes from opposite, such as, a claim that wake comes from sleep, and therefore death is the opposite of life. It is based on these argument that the paper will seek to provide a counter arguments presented by Socrates. First, there is a need to get deeper understanding of what Socrates mean by these arguments. The argument of Socrates presents a conclusion that states that people do not equal their bodies. This provides support to the claim that the body and the soul are two different entities. Examining the two argument that Socrates presents, that is; that one’s body did not exist before life and that people existed before life, and therefore individuals are either their souls or their body and considering that the body usually dies, then after death, people must be their souls. This means that people were dead souls before they got life. These arguments presented by Socrates therefore prove that the soul is in immortal. In the second part of the argument, the point that Socrates was trying to preset was on the Forms as presented by Plato. The argument is not so clear, but what Socrates is attempting to present is that whenever the soul leaves the body after death, it moves on to the real on divine that would not be touched, ideal and perfect that would only be described by the forms. The arguments that have been provided by Socrates are inductive. Inductive because of the reasoning that truth of the premises gives a reason for the acceptance of the conclusion. (Terrell, D. B., 1967) In the argument made by Socrates, he point that philosophers believe that death is to separate a soul from the body. And those philosophers are people who think through separation of their body from their souls. This means that the philosophers die every day and for that matter should not fear death. Socrates uses separation of the fact that philosophers believe in soul separation, as the premise to arrive at the conclusion that death is a good thing to philosophers. The arguments that have been made by Socrates in Phaedo may be challenged. To this end, the paper will explore counter argument on the identified argument in the previous section of the paper. First, considering that Socrates is grounding his arguments on the fact that individuals have knowledge at birth and that such knowledge is lost with time is not an accurate position. Socrates presents a contrasting claim from what he had practiced earlier. In His arguments in the Apology, he had suggested that the youths came to him to seek knowledge. If this was the position, how then was he able to give knowledge when at birth individuals had knowledge? (Hind, R. D. 1973) The claim Socrates is making should be stemmed from the fact that no one has knowledge at birth nor would such knowledge exist at death. What Cebes had suggested on the earlier arguments presents a better premise of argument. Wise people should stay more with the wiser people. This would thus give them opportunity to learn from them, things that they would not have known. The argument that I am trying to posit in this case would prove to be more scientific than what Socrates is presenting. Rather than relying on utopian argument, of cyclic living of man, he should have relied on observable characteristics of arguments. References Eliot, C. W., Jowett, B., Crossley, H., & Long, G. (1937). The Apology, Phaedo, and Crito of Plato,. New York: P.F. Collier & Son. Hind, R. D. (1973). The Phaedo of Plato. New York: Arno Press. Terrell, D. B. (1967). Logic; a Modern Introduction to Deductive Reasoning. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Read More