Phaedo Socrates: An Analysis Of Plato's Forms

Improved Essays
Plato’s forms were objective ideas of perfection of a concept. The forms are an essence of a concept, or a model for the individual, the ideal state. In the dialogue, the Phaedo Socrates is defending his theory of recollection through explaining notions of the forms. “For our argument applies not merely to the equal, but with the same force to the beautiful itself, the good itself, the just, the holy, in fact, as I have just said, to everything upon which we affix our seal and mark as being.” (p.175). The forms serve as essential aspects of being. They are characteristics that determines the object’s state of being as necessary qualities. For an object to be that object it must participate in the form. For example, a king must be just. The …show more content…
A priori is knowledge derived from deduction as opposed to empirically. Plato’s forms were not perceptible, or accessible by the senses, only through contemplation. Epistemologically, the form is the object of genuine knowledge- or the highest level of knowledge. If only able to be understood by deduction, the forms must be accessed through a very specific kind of knowledge, innate knowledge. In the Meno, Socrates presents a series of math problems to a slave by drawing a square in the sand. Being a slave, he never would have had a chance at education and without innate knowledge would have no way of knowing the information. “At the beginning he did not know the side of the square of eight feet. Nor indeed does he know it now, but then he thought he knew it and answered boldly, as was appropriate- he felt no perplexity. Now however, he does feel perplexed. Not only does he not know the answer; he doesn’t even think he knows.” pg 121. This part of the Meno is often criticized, interpreted as Socrates saying that the slave had innate knowledge of the answer when he has just taught it to him. I would assert, however that it is not the content that the slave is learning that is meant to be the innate knowledge he has, but the capacity for reason. Socrates was a teacher, his method was meant to lead people to question the systems and concepts in their lives, but it was their ability to work out logic that would ultimately bring the student to a …show more content…
A glimpse of Plato’s soul is present in the Phaedo as Socrates awaits his death sentence among other philosophers. The soul is seen as separate from the body as a kind of unity. As opposed to the pre-Socratics, Plato’s notion of the soul is closer to the modern idea of consciousness. In reference to death Socrates states, “Well then, he will be as ready to comply as anyone else who has a proper attitude to philosophy.” (p.159). Socrates is really saying that philosophy prepares the soul for death. Philosophy is this case means contemplation of the forms and the good. Yet another influence of the Pythagoreans who believed the key to salvation was through contemplation of the nature of the universe. Like the Pythagoreans, Plato believed in a reincarnation of the soul. In a later dialogue, the Phaedrus, the soul is attached to one’s role in life. One’s role in life corresponds to seeking truth and whether one sought truth in life determined how close they were to salvation. “Such a soul, if with three revolutions of a thousand years she has thrice choosen this philosophic life, regains thereby her wings, and speeds away after three thousand years; but the rest, when they have accomplished their first life, are brought to judgement…”(p.249). The philosopher’s soul, or the seeker of the forms and the good, is the only soul that can reach salvation. Behind the philosopher is the king, or guardian, but to

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    In order to gain a better understanding of how truth is discovered rather than manufactured, one must examine the philosophy of Plato. A quintessential concept in Plato’s philosophy is the idea of being versus Being. In Plato’s Republic, the philosopher claims that there are two different realms within reality: the visible world of being, and the intelligible world of Being. In the world of Being, there exists what Plato calls the Forms. The Forms are Plato’s First Principle; he claims that the Forms are perfect, eternal, and non-changing objects in the intelligible realm, and these are the essences of the physical world; these are how things ought to be (INCLUDE CITATIONS).…

    • 1520 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abdulkabir Adejumo Professor Escalante PHILO 1301 11/2/2017 Response Paper 1 “Do We Survive Death?” In this interesting chapter, James Rachels starts by uncovering the philosophy of Socrates about the immortal soul. At that point, he utilizes the scientific argument to conflict with Socrates' conclusion about the presence of the soul as a piece of the human body.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The body, while seemingly clearly definable and understandable, is a concept that humans have struggled to define and understand for much of history. Social conceptions of the mind of spirit shaped philosophers’ understandings of the relationship between the mind and body, as well as attitudes toward the body. In his essay “The Concept of the Body,” Eliot Deutsch presents readers with four popular modes of conceiving of the body. These models, popularized at different points throughout history, are the prison, the temple, the machine, and the instrument. Through reading Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, one gains perspective on Socrates’ conception of the body, as a prison.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The imperfection argument is an argument for both the existence of forms and the concept of a priori. Plato uses this argument as the base of the imperfection of sensible objects and our ability to make judgments about the sensible objects. The basic idea is that we can’s abstract the concept of beauty, from our sense-experience of the objects around us that are beautiful. The imperfection argument goes as follows: 1. “We perceive sensible objects to be equal.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the two texts that we read in class, Plato, Phaedo, and Lucretius, Nature of Things, both Socrates and Lucretius try to reassure us that we should not be afraid of death. In Plato, Phaedo, Phaedo is telling the story of Socrates’s final hours from being their first hand. In Lucretius, Nature of Things, Lucretius’s telling his view on religious issues and how he got to his view, poetic skills, and study on scientific phenomena. Both Socrates and Lucretius have different arguments on why we should not be afraid of death. Socrates and Lucretius would have their own responses to each other 's argument if they were to reply to each other.…

    • 1540 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Philosophy, in its simplest form is the pursuit of wisdom (merriam-webster.com). Throughout the ages, the world has seen many philosophers pursue this wisdom in many forms. Men like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates were all incredibly popular. With works such as the Apology Phaedo Symposium Republic by Plato and the whole idea of logic itself, it’s no wonder. Socrates in particular is incredibly well known.…

    • 1573 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Plato 's argument of recollection in Meno tries to solve the puzzle of how knowledge is acquired or learned. Plato, a classical Greek philosopher who is a famous writer. In Plato 's Meno Socrates , a philosopher who questions a slave into recollecting prior knowledge and not drawing any conclusions from information that is being ask of him for the first time. Plato 's idea of true knowledge is based on its usual nature and his theory of recollection, that suggest that all knowledge can be recollected through intelligence. To question is necessary for this ideas of knowledge to be true.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The “cyclical argument” of the Phaedo imparts the ideology Socrates had in regard to the immortality of the soul and his views about death, which he was about to face himself. Among a gathering of his most faithful followers, his friends are astonished that Socrates is not desolate about his ill fate, but rather, he is delighted with it. Socrates proclaims that the life of a philosopher is merely a preparation for death since the mind is most pure when the pressures of the body is felt least. He even informs them that he believes in the soul and the afterlife. After his friends vocalized their skepticism of his beliefs, he begins a discourse in which he attempts to prove the immortality of the soul.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The subject of philosophy is a study that can be viewed in many different ways. Some ways vary in extremes from one another, but they all wish to pursue the same thing; the understanding of knowledge and human excellence. One of the most popular arguments is the comparison of mind and body. Through this paper I will go in depth on the individuals theories and discoveries, then compare them using the ideas from Plato’s Phaedo and Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy. Both philosophers share the same ideas on dualism, and believe the body to be inferior to the mind and/or soul.…

    • 1568 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the Phaedo, Plato provides several arguments in an attempt to prove the immorality of the soul. In this essay, I will focus on his Final Argument, which describes the Forms as causes, subject to destruction or displacement when the particular undergoes some change. Next, I will show how Socrates applies these ideas to argue for the immortality of the soul. Finally, I will present a few reservations I have about the validity of this argument.…

    • 1675 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Phaedo is perhaps one of the most well-known dialogues written by the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato. This dialogue recounts Socrates’ final hours before his death as told by Phaedo of Elis, one of the philosophers present during that time. Along with him were Crito and two other Pythagorean philosophers, Simmias and Cebes. The main focus of this dialogue is on the subject of immortality and the soul, and whether or not the soul will survive death. Socrates provides four arguments in which he aims to prove that the soul is in fact immortal.…

    • 1169 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the Republic, Plato mentions the soul several times. Plato agrees that the soul is immortal and separate from the body. He also believes that the soul is eternal and according to Plato, the soul doesn’t come into existence with the body, but rather exists prior to being with the body. He believed that the soul exists inside the body until it dies. Because of this, Plato called the body the prison to the soul.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Socrates and Phaedrus discuss love and erotic love throughout the dialogue of Plato’s Phaedrus. The dialogue also discusses rhetoric itself and the ways in which it is and should be practiced, as well as subjects such as metempsychosis. The dialogue in Phaedrus does not allow for any introductions to explain the story. This is somewhat unusual as it comes as a first-hand dialogue, uninterrupted by nobody and nothing. It plays out almost as if we are witnessing the events ourselves.…

    • 1395 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Soul and the Body in Aristotle’s De Anima Aristotle’s De Anima, unveils a discussion of souls (i.e., those of humans, amongst other living things) that is quite unlike what we have seen with other philosophers prior to him. Unlike the theories espoused by his predecessors, such as those of Plato and his work in the Phaedo, Aristotle’s De Anima generates a kind of characterization of the soul that steers away from the soul as being the individual creature’s true and only identity, which is separable from the body and immortal. For Aristotle, the soul is characterized as both the form of the body, as well as the actuality of the body (both claims I will explain in greater detail later on in my paper). Moreover, this conception of the soul…

    • 1885 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many things have changed since man was first made out of the dust of the earth, but the passage of time finds humanity today continuing to struggle with reality (and themselves) just as their predecessors did many years ago. Worldview (that is, one’s perception of reality) is critical to how an individual comes to terms with such things, as it both shapes and is shaped by the person who holds it. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, is no exception, but is noteworthy as much of Western thought stems from the contemplations of his enigmatic mind. The worldview held by this philosopher is based upon a moral framework of absolutely defined good and evil, a separation between a true self called “soul” and the physical body (just as archetypes…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays