Phaedo 70a.84b

In this reading I find the "shaky building blocks" that we spoke about in class back on Wednesday. To include but not limited to the ideas that souls exist in the underworld and come from there, things come from their opposites, learning is recollection and that the body is evil. Socrates uses these blocks to form the argument that souls from the dead (opposites) and that learning is a recollection because you've learned before and that the body is evil for its temptations, thus if you want to be with the gods you must be pure and practice philosophy. While I find the argument well structured with what he has said, I still find it unconvincing. While I'm not purposely trying to find a flaw with everything that Socrates says, I do find it irritating that he tries to simplify everything into broad yes or no observations which sometimes makes it easy to disregard what he says as bogus. Here are some rebuttal questions/concerns I had while reading.

How do we know that when we die something special happens (like our soul separating from the body)? We know our body decomposes and the atoms become something else as part of the earth. While I do believe that our soul goes to heaven if we were a good person, it still takes a lot of faith to believe so because we don't know for certain.

Cebes sort of tackles this question by asking Socrates (around 70) essentially, how do you get a non-believing man to believe? Socrates begins his rationalization by assuming that the person believes that souls exist in the underworld and then concludes that it's a cycle that things come from their opposites. I find that idea shaky as it's too simple of an answer for my taste. Similar to which came first the chicken or the egg question, Socrates answers by saying they came from each other and have been there forever. That's probably farfetched, but the simple idea that nothing has a third dimension or other possible factors that complicate problems is absurd. Small examples: does water have an opposite? How are ice and vapor related to it (only one can be an opposite)? Are heat and cold really opposites when considering that cold is the absence of heat. Basically when you say something is opposite you leave little room for other discussion for things in-between or for odd mutations.

I found Socrates arrogant when he basic says if you don't practice philosophy you won't be pure and thus you can't join the gods