Immortality, the Body, and the Soul
Because Phaedo is an account of Socrates’s final discussion before his execution, the majority of the dialogue is concerned with the notion of mortality. As friends and fellow philosophers Cebes, Crito, and Simmias crowd around Socrates, they express how sad they are that he’s about to die. Socrates, however, is at peace, explaining that it would be foolish to mourn his death, which—he argues—is merely physical. He makes a distinction between the…
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Knowledge and Wisdom
In Phaedo, Socrates examines the nature of wisdom, using the process of learning to argue not only for the immortality of the soul, but also for the overall benefit of the life of the mind. Having drawn a clear distinction between the body and the soul, he says that philosophers prepare themselves for death by paying attention only to intellectual pursuits, which he asserts continue beyond death. Knowledge and wisdom, Socrates maintains, have the…
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Existence, Reality, and the Forms
Socrates’s primary goal in Phaedo is to prove the immortality of the soul, but in doing so he also meditates on the very nature of existence. As he examines what makes a thing the way it is, he formulates The Theory of Forms, an important philosophical concept regarding the overall essence of a given object or idea. The Theory of Forms is the complex—yet also deceptively simple—idea that there are certain Forms of…
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Intellectual Inquiry, Discussions, and Friendship
Because Phaedo is one of Plato’s most conceptually rich Socratic dialogues, most readers focus primarily on the text’s specific philosophical implications, but it’s worth keeping in mind that it is also a snapshot of Socrates’s final living moments. Surrounded by friends and fellow thinkers, he chooses to spend the remainder of his time doing what he has devoted his entire life to: seeking the truth through intellectual inquiry and discussion. This means engaging his…
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