Phaedo Beauty

Plato, the author of Phaedo as stated by A.A. Long in The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy, writes Phaedo in hopes of educating his students. This Socratic Dialogue is set in Ancient Greece around the time of Socrates’s death or 399 BC. Plato desires to give his students a better understanding of Socrates’s thoughts on beauty. Socrates claims to believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. He simply states that once we define beauty, beautiful things will appear beautiful. With this knowledge, his students and readers can become more educated on Socrates’s profound teachings. Plato wrote Phaedo as a piece of philosophical literature. Specifically, this work of Plato is considered a Socratic Dialogue. Socrates has this
In this passage, Socrates tries to express an answer to a very difficult question by using some confusing language. In order to fully understand this passage, one must define some of the difficult words and phrases. For instance, Socrates often says the phrase, “by beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.” Beauty is something that one may find alluring or interesting; everything contains beauty in some sense. Also, beautiful is defined as the presence of beauty, so one can only conclude that the phrase previously stated means that anything can be beautiful once one recognizes the beauty found in it. Another thing that may confuse one is who Socrates is referring to in this passage. Socrates refers to everyone that seeks truth and everyone willing to listen to his thoughts. With a better understand of Socrates’s language, one can begin to understand Plato’s
To begin his argument, he states that the concept of beauty confuses him, especially the idea of a beauty standard. Socrates proceeds to say that beauty does not have a standard, rather everything contains beauty in its own form. If one was to ask Socrates the question of what is considered beautiful, Socrates would answer that everything can contain beauty, but one must recognize the beauty in something for it to be labeled as beautiful. This answer is the safest one he can provide, for he feels that this principle will never be overthrown. Socrates’s believes that “by beauty beautiful thing become