My Immortal Soul
Sabrina
Professor Costanzo
PHI 1000C
April 29, 2010
The Immortality of the Soul
Plato has roused many readers with the work of a great philosopher by the name of Socrates. Through Plato, Socrates lived on generations after his time. A topic of Socrates that many will continue to discuss is the idea of “an immortal soul”. Although there are various works and dialogues about this topic it is found to be best explained in The Phaedo. It is fair to say that the mind may wonder when one dies what exactly happens to the beloved soul, the giver of life often thought of as the very essence of life does it live on beyond the body, or does it die with it? Does the soul have knowledge of the past if it really does live on? In Plato’s The Phaedo, Plato recounts Socrates final days before he is put to death. Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens and not following the rights of Athenian religion.[1] Socrates death brings him and his fellow philosophers Cebes, Simmions, Phaedo, and Plato into a perplex dialogue about this notion of an afterlife and what does one have to look forward to after death. Death is defined as the separation of the body from the soul. In The Phaedo death has two notions a common one which is the basic idea that the soul dies and the physical, idea that the soul separates from the body after death. “The soul is most like that which is divine, immortal intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and ever self-consistent and invariable, whereas body is most like that which human, mortal is, multiform, unintelligible, dissoluble, and never self-consistent.” (Phaedo)[2] According to Socrates, knowledge is not something one came to understand but it was actually imprinted on the soul. Knowledge to Socrates was an unchanging eternal truth, something that could not be acquired through experience and time. Socrates friends believe that after death the soul disperses into the air like a
Professor Costanzo
PHI 1000C
April 29, 2010
The Immortality of the Soul
Plato has roused many readers with the work of a great philosopher by the name of Socrates. Through Plato, Socrates lived on generations after his time. A topic of Socrates that many will continue to discuss is the idea of “an immortal soul”. Although there are various works and dialogues about this topic it is found to be best explained in The Phaedo. It is fair to say that the mind may wonder when one dies what exactly happens to the beloved soul, the giver of life often thought of as the very essence of life does it live on beyond the body, or does it die with it? Does the soul have knowledge of the past if it really does live on? In Plato’s The Phaedo, Plato recounts Socrates final days before he is put to death. Socrates has been imprisoned and sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens and not following the rights of Athenian religion.[1] Socrates death brings him and his fellow philosophers Cebes, Simmions, Phaedo, and Plato into a perplex dialogue about this notion of an afterlife and what does one have to look forward to after death. Death is defined as the separation of the body from the soul. In The Phaedo death has two notions a common one which is the basic idea that the soul dies and the physical, idea that the soul separates from the body after death. “The soul is most like that which is divine, immortal intelligible, uniform, indissoluble, and ever self-consistent and invariable, whereas body is most like that which human, mortal is, multiform, unintelligible, dissoluble, and never self-consistent.” (Phaedo)[2] According to Socrates, knowledge is not something one came to understand but it was actually imprinted on the soul. Knowledge to Socrates was an unchanging eternal truth, something that could not be acquired through experience and time. Socrates friends believe that after death the soul disperses into the air like a
Cited: 1. Cahn, M Steven. Classics of Western Philosophy. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc 2006 2. Morgan, K, 2000, Myth and Philosophy from the pre-Socratics to Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Partenie, Catalin, "Plato 's Myths", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . (April 11th2010) ----------------------- [1] Cahn- Plato’s, The Phaedo [2] Quote from the philosopher Phaedo [3] Socrates theories discussed by Plato [4] Phaedo 70a [5] Plato’s The Meno