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Phaedo

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The Beautiful itself ... of the Forms, like the Beautiful, the Just, the Good, the ... live in the sunshine in beautiful dwelling places on the surface of ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Phaedo


1
Phaedo
  • Philosophy 21
  • Fall, 2004
  • G. J. Mattey

2
Plato
  • Born 427 BC
  • Lived in Athens
  • Follower of Socrates
  • Founded the Academy
  • Tried and failed to influence politics in
    Syracuse
  • Died 347 BC

3
The Dialogues
  • Plato wrote a number of dialogues between
    Socrates and his contemporaries
  • They are usually divided into three periods
  • Early concerning Socrates and his unsuccessful
    quest for an account of virtue (Euthyphro)
  • Middle developing Platos own positions (Meno,
    Phaedo, Republic)
  • Late examining problems with Platos views

4
Philosophy and Death
  • Socratess imminent execution sets the stage for
    the dialogue
  • He maintains that one aim of practicing
    philosophy is to prepare for death
  • Philosophy frees the soul from the body as much
    as possible in life
  • So the philosopher is thought by the many as
    being close to death

5
The Body
  • The body is a hindrance to knowledge
  • There is no truth in sight, hearing, etc.
  • Reasoning comes closest to revealing reality
  • We reason best when the body is not troubling the
    soul
  • The body gives rise to needs and desire, which in
    turn produce disruptive conflict

6
Imperceptible Reality
  • There are such things as
  • The Just itself
  • The Beautiful itself
  • The Good itself
  • Each of these is the reality which other things
    essentially are
  • They should be tracked down using pure thought
    alone

7
Virtue
  • The philosopher, the lover of wisdom, is
    contrasted with the lover of the body
  • To face death courageously through fear of
    greater evil is inconsistent
  • To be moderate in order to enhance pleasure is to
    be mastered by pleasure
  • Only the philosopher can behave truly virtuously,
    by despising the body

8
Immortality
  • The soul can attain true knowledge only if it is
    separated from the body
  • True knowledge can be attained after death only
    if the soul continues to exist
  • How can it be shown that the soul is immortal?
  • This requires a good deal of faith and
    persuasive argument

9
Argument From Opposites
  • Opposites come to be only from opposites
  • Life is the opposite of death
  • So, life comes to be through death
  • Life can come from death only if the soul already
    exists without the body
  • The soul exists without the body only due to the
    death of a previous body
  • So, the soul exists after death

10
Recollection and Immortality
  • The example of Menos slave supports the theory
    that all learning is recollection
  • If the theory is true, then what the soul knows
    when in its present body it must have recollected
    from a time before it was in that body
  • If the soul existed outside the body, then it is
    probably immortal

11
How We Recollect
  • We recollect something when we are reminded of it
    by something else
  • The reminding thing need not exactly resemble the
    thing of which we are reminded
  • Seeing equal objects reminds us of the Equal
    itself

12
Perceptible Objects and the Forms
  • Equal objects are considerably deficient with
    respect to the Equal itself
  • They strive to be the Equal itself but fall short
  • We cannot know of this deficiency unless we
    already know the Equal itself
  • If we already know the Equal itself, then we
    recall it when we say that perceptible things are
    equal

13
The Nature of the Forms
  • The Equal itself is the standard by which things
    are equal to each other
  • It is one of the Forms, like the Beautiful, the
    Just, the Good, the Pious
  • These things certainly exist
  • Each one is simple
  • Because they are simple, the Forms are not
    subject to change

14
Knowledge of the Forms
  • The soul can know the Forms, but not through
    bodily experience
  • So it either knew the Forms from birth, it
    acquired the knowledge at birth, or else it
    recollected them
  • If the Forms were known from birth or were
    acquired at birth, we would always know them
  • But many people do not know the Forms
  • So, the Forms are known through recollection

15
Argument from Recollection
  • The soul can only know the Equal itself by
    recollection
  • Recollection requires existence before birth
  • So, the soul existed before birth
  • If the soul existed before birth, then it existed
    after death from prior argument
  • So, the soul exists after death

16
Argument from Simplicity
  • If the soul ceases to exist, it must be because
    it it has decomposed
  • The Forms are simple and incapable of
    decomposition
  • The soul resembles the Forms in its simplicity
  • So, the soul is incapable of decomposition
  • So, the soul cannot cease to exist

17
Purification
  • The life one leads determines ones condition
    after death
  • Polluted souls will be unhappy
  • Eventually they will be reincarnated into an
    animal suited to their vices
  • Only the completely pure can join the gods and
    attain true knowledge
  • This is why philosophy is training for death

18
The Harmony Objection
  • The Pythagoreans conceived of the soul as a
    harmony and the body like a lyre
  • The harmony ceases to exist when the lyre is
    destroyed, so the soul would cease to exist upon
    the death of the body
  • But a harmony is formed after the lyre, so if the
    soul were the harmony of the body, recollection
    would be impossible
  • And we could not explain virtue and vice in terms
    of harmony and disharmony
  • So the harmony account of the soul is rejected

19
The Cloak Objection
  • The soul is said to outlast many bodies because
    it existed before those bodies
  • Similarly, a man exists before many cloaks he
    wears out, and yet the last cloak of a person
    survives after the persons death
  • So the soul might be wearing its last body
    (which survives as a corpse after death)

20
The Forms as Causes
  • Answering the cloak objection requires an
    investigation into causes
  • Physical explanations of causes are inadequate
  • The Beautiful itself exists, and it is beautiful
  • The cause of somethings being beautiful is
    explained by the things sharing in the Beautiful
    itself

21
Admitting the Opposite
  • Forms do not admit of their opposites
  • E.g., the Odd can never be the Even
  • What necessarily brings along a property does not
    admit the opposite of that property
  • A triad can never become even

22
The Final Argument
  • The soul can only bring life to the body into
    which it enters
  • So, the soul does not admit the opposite of life
  • The opposite of life is death
  • So, the soul never admits death
  • So, the soul is deathless
  • What is deathless is indestructible
  • So, the soul is indestructible

23
The Underworld
  • When the soul leaves the body at the bodys
    death, it journeys to the underworld
  • Socrates gives a detailed description (which he
    admits is not certain) of the underworld
  • The wicked receive repeated punishment until they
    repent
  • The virtuous are freed to live in the sunshine in
    beautiful dwelling places on the surface of the
    earth, and he hopes to join them soon
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