Phaedo

Phaedo is a dialogue of which Socrates attempts to demonstrate the immortality of the rational soul. He uses four arguments for the soul's immortality in order to show that there is an afterlife in which the soul exists following death. Socrates referes to Forms in one section of the dialoge to build up his arguments.

Socrates first argument about the immortality of the soul, is that all things come from their own inverse. His argument is stating that since life is the opposite of death, they must go in a cycle. We die at the end of our life, but we were given life from previously dead souls; therefore we are making a cycle.

Socrates begins this argument by making a statement, then asking Cebes for his opposition, "For if living things were generated from other sources than death, and were to die, the result is inevitable that all things would be consumed by death. Is it not so?"(72d). This argument alone is not enough to convince me of immortality of the soul; although I agree with Cebes as to accepting this, simply because I find it hard to think of an argument to oppose this.

The theory of recollection is the next argument Socrates uses for the immortality of the soul. Socrates says all knowledge we have is preexistent in our memories, and the process of learning is simply a recollection of that knowledge, "I suppose, that if a man remembers anything, he must have known it at some previous time" (73c).

There are different levels of reality, and different ways to apprehend it. This being said, I think Socrates is stating that the recollection is simply the process of remembering, and that there exists a world distinct from our reality.

As previously learned, Socrates believes forms are immaterial things that are eternal. He begins to refer to Forms when explaining equality to Cebes using the example of sticks and stones. He explains the equal things are different from equality, but they can still bring Equality into our minds, "Do we not believe in the existence of equalityÐ'--not the equality of pieces of wood or of stones, but something beyond thatÐ'--equality in the abstract?"(74a). Socrates is saying we have an impression in our heads, which was granted to us in a previous time (Forms). We are able to see images, and then be familiar with them, because of impressions.

I think this argument does well to show the soul preexisted, and that we may have been pre enlightened, but it does not prove immortality. There is no where in this argument that Socrates proves the soul will last forever, but he does make it seem quite likely. Socrates does not say wither it is a new soul or a preexisting soul being enlightened before the entrance into the body. Either way, it's hard to comprehend. If it were a new soul, then the old ones would be eventually dead, or appear useless.

In the third argument to demonstrate immortality of the rational soul, Socrates explains how there are two kinds of existence, "the one visible, the other invisible" (79a). He makes it clear that the body and soul are, in fact compatible to the visible and invisible, by saying "Then the soul is more like the invisible than the body; and the body is like the visible" (79b).

Socrates argues that the soul is the invisible; therefore it leaves the possibility for it to invincible, and able to leave ones body at the end of their