Facing his execution with some of his closest friends (as described in the Phaedo), Socrates dismisses an gloomy predictions about his death: death is a good thing and something that he is confident he will outlast. What is the basis of this confidence? Socrates develops three arguments for the immortality of the soul. If just ONE of these arguments is sound, he will have demonstrated that we all have a reason to cheer for the Grim Reaper. But is he correct?
Examine ONE of Socrates' arguments in the Phaedo, briefly describing its main points. What is one problem or objection to that argument? Is there any way Socrates can address, avoid or otherwise get around that objection?
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ReplyDeleteIn Phaedo, Socrates justifies his theory about the soul being immortal by making the argument of opposites. He argues that with everything in life, there is always an opposite. The opposite of living is dying, and the opposite of dying is living, therefore our souls come from death, hence the soul being immortal. I think one problem with this argument is that there is not a clear depiction of what an actual opposite is and when an object changes and just gets altered. Many could argue that something is just being briefly altered or tweaked and isn’t necessarily becoming an opposite. In Phaedo, it is believed that the only change that can happen, comes from opposites, but altering and physically changing it are never considered. Also, it is argued that life comes from death, but in reality, this is not the case for humans. Humans are pronounced dead when they stop living, meaning that they physically cannot come back to life. So, it is unclear how life can really come from death logistically. This also tests the argument of the soul being immortal and coming from opposites. I think this objection is hard to avoid because people will always find a way to question something’s opposite. Also, people can argue that not everything stems from an opposite because many times things stem from each other rather than from an opposite.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Plato's Phaedo, Socrates, an Ancient Greek Philosopher, details, through the eyes of Plato, his views on the topic of death. In which he believes so strongly that he kills himself in an attempt to prove he was right. The most interesting of these takes, however, is his Cyclical Argument, in which he states that because:
ReplyDelete1) All things come from their opposites. For example, if something is now strong, it once was weak.
2) Between these opposite conditions, there are two opposite transformations. So between strong and weak there is an increase in strength and a decrease in strength.
3) If these two transformations did not balance each other out, everything would end up the same. If the increase in strength did not match up with the decrease, everything would just end up weak.
4) Since life and death are opposite conditions and dying and being born and opposite transformations, being born must balance out dying.
Therefore, everything that dies must come back to life. I see a few issues with this take, the first being the understanding that everything comes from its opposite, if this were true then all dumb men would become smart, all poor men would become rich, and all short men would become tall. I believe this is fundamentally incorrect as it relies less on the fate of the universe and more on the decision making of the individual. A poor man can become rich, but he must take the steps necessary to do so, and not everyone does.