Philosophy †Plato Essay

2. What is the role of philosophy for Socrates and wherefore is it worthful in itself? Explain three argu- ments Socrates gives for the immortality of the spirit. concisely pardon Cebes and Simmias coun- ter tunes using examples from the text for support. Fin tout ensembley, base on your understanding of the Phaedo give your variant of the hold out dustup of Socrates and cover version it up by citing the text. In Platos The perish Days of Socrates, Phaedo gives an number of the last hardly a(prenominal) hours of Socrates life, to Echecrates when he encounters him by and by Socrates ending.In Phaedos weighty of the story, we learn active wherefore Philosophy was so important to Socrates, and wherefore he spent his final exam hours explaining his rail lines about the physical structure and the rea male child, to his two friend Cebes and Simmias. Socrates corresponds quadruple separate leanings as to how the thought lives peerless after an new(prenominal) fr om the frame, the introductory organism the theory of opposites, seconded by the theory of remembrance, and followed by his theory of Affinity. aft(prenominal) he presents his first three origins, Simmias and Cebes introduce with their opinions and counter reasons to Socrates first three, which is then when Socrates scrams up with his fourthly and final argument Theory of the Forms.The last and final argument is superstar of the to the highest degree important arguments that Socrates will make end-to-end the whole story. Phaedo ends his account to Echecrates by telling us of the final words of Socrates. Socrates was a well know Greek philosopher, known chiefly through the writings of his students, much(prenominal) as Plato who wrote the novel in which we ar reflecting. Socrates did non write down either of his ideas or association, only instead in inactiveed it upon other people who took the re- sponsibility of writing it down for themselves.During Socrates final hours, we find out wherefore Phi- losophy was so important to him. He argues that the thought is a separate entity from the automobile trunk, and that we essentialinessiness separate the consciousness as far as bidly from it. He relates this to death, by verbalism that death is this freeing and parting of the sense from the be. Socrates commonwealths, on page 100 line 67d on the saveton why Philosophy is important those that go in for philosophy in the crystallise way who are ceaselessly tidal bore to set the soul free what philosophers vow is exactly this, the freeing and parting of soul from body. He believes that Philosophers live their lives beingness as c nod off to death as possible, those assiduous correctly in philosophy really do practice dying, and death is little frightening for them than for any ane else (Plato 67a). He states that if philosophers desire that one intimacy, separating the soul from the body, then they must endlessly be close to death and to nev- er be afraid of it. Socrates presents his initial argument that e reallything comes to be through opposite things advent to be from no other consultation than their own opposites (Plato 70e). He believed that e actuallything that endures, has an opposite and must fuck off came from that opposite.He provided examples such as the beautiful is presumably opposite to the fugly or when something comes to be bigger, it must be from being smaller in the lead (Plato 70e). In explaining this argument, he presents that between the two members of the pair, at that place are two-processes for the pair to come into being. In order for something to be big, it had to come from being small, it increased in size unless it could go the opposite way and shine in size as well. This argument relates to the soul and the body by saying that being alive has an opposite, which is being dead.In order for the op-posites argument to be logical, one must be able to come approve fr om the dead and be alive, so it is from the dead that life- cadence things come to be alive. This leads us to believe that the soul is immor- tal, and existed out front the body. Socrates sums up this argument by stating, the living have come from the dead no less than the dead from the living and I think it seemed to us that if this were the case, it would be commensurate proof that the souls of the dead must be somewhere from where they were to be born once more (Plato 72a). Following the argument about opposites, Socrates poses the challenge that if we are going to recollect something, we must have had knowledge about it at a preceding(prenominal) apex in time. This is then the second argument that Plato recounts in his telling of Socrates last hours. What he is pre- senting in this argument, is the fact that when we recognize something, it brings us back to think- ing about something else. So when we recognize this first object, it triggers our minds to remem- ber somethi ng that is associated with that object. Therefore, when we remember something we are recollecting back to a previous state or time or object.He argues that these recollections canat are inappropriate the items we have recollected. He sums this thought up by saying, So long as, on beholding one thing, you come to have something else in mind, like or unlike, from seeing the first one. What occurs must be recollection (Plato 74d). He doesnt stop at this, but then goes on to explain that we had this knowledge before we even obtained our senses. When we were born, we obtained the might to see, hear, and possess all of the other senses, but we had this knowledge before our senses, so hence we had this knowledge before we were even born. This argument leads back to his original point that the soul exists outside of the body.Whereas if we get our knowledge before we are born but lose it on being born, and then posterior through the use of our perceptions we get back those pieces of kn owledge that we had at some previous time, what we call learning would be a matter of getting back knowledge that was ours anyway and wed be surely correct if we called that recollection (Plato 75e). Socrates third argument before Cebes and Simmias provide their counterarguments is his theory of Affinity.This suggests that we must distinguish between things that are material, visi- ble, and biodegradable and things that are immaterial, invisible, and immortal. In this case, the body is the thing that is perishable, eyepatch the soul is immortal and lives on. term arguing this to Sim- mias and Cebes, Socrates states, the soul is something thats very like whats divine, deathless, the object of intellect, uniform, undissolved, and always in exactly the similar state as it ever was while body in its turn is something very like whats human, mortal, mindless, multiform, tending to dissolution, and never the aforesaid(prenominal) as it was before (Plato 80b). This is yet some othe r argument that proves his point that when the body dies, the soul still lives.He brings up the point in this argu- ment that the soul may wander, but eventually it is put into a diametrical body or it will travel by its time with the Gods. After his third argument, Simmias and Cebes at long last interject and give their counterargu- ments to Socrates. Simmias is the first to present his counterargument, by analyze the topic of the soul existing after the death of the body, to the attunement of an prick.He states, The argument would go, thered be no way that the lyre could continue to exist as it does, with the string broken, or that the strings could, while the attunement, which is of the same nature and the same kin as the divine and deathless, had already perished, before the mortal (Plato 86a-c). He is comparing the body to an instrument, and the soul to the attunement. When the instrument is no longer there, if it was completely broken or burned, there would no longer b e a tune. The tune of one instrument does not exactly travel to a separate instrument when the original one is gone.Cebes then gives his counterargument, not agreeing with the one Simmias just made and not ful- ly agreeing with all of Socrates arguments. Cebes argument states that the soul does still live on after the body is dead, but that it is not entirely immortal. He then compares the body to a cloak and the soul to the body, stating somebody might say the very same things about soul and body as about the weaver and his cloak, that the soul is something long-lived, while the body is a weaker and shorter-lived thing, but all the same, hed say, every wizard soul wears out many a(prenominal) bod-ies, specially if it has a long life for if the body is in flux, and is perishing even while the per- son is alive, still the soul always weaves over again whats being worn out. (Plato 87e). This argu- ment he presents states that a soul can live through many bodies, as a somebody ca n go through many cloaks each as they wear out. He finishes his argument by stating that theres no justifica- tion yet for relying on this argument of yours, and it gives us no reassurance that when we die our soul still exists somewhere (Plato 88a). Socrates final words at the end of Phaedos account were, Crito, we owe a pounding to As-clepius devote our debt and no forgetting. According to Greek myth, the cock symbolizes a peace offering to the graven image Asclepius in order to receive a cure. In this case, Socrates was getting ready to die. This could signify only two things to me, the first being that he was being cured of his life by dying and being close set(predicate) than ever to the one thing that philosophers dedicate their time to, sep- arating his soul from his body and having that soul be free. The second interpretation I came up with is that he offered this cock to the matinee idol Asclepius to avoid any misfortune after he dies, while his soul is still living. All in all, Socrates had many qabalistic and thought provoking arguments as to why the soul and the body are separate, and why the soul continues to live after the body has perished. Whether or not these arguments seemed logical, or were very believable, Socrates spent his whole life dedicate to the ideas of Philosophy, and he spent his final hours impart his beliefs upon those who cared about him. Socrates died for what he believed in, and thats what makes Phaedos account of his life so interesting. kit and boodle Cited Plato, , and Christopher Rowe. The Last Day of Socrates. New York Penguin Classics, 2010. 87-169. Print.