Kaija Poupore PHIL180 Assignment 1 1/30/2012 In section 70a-78a of Phaedo, a demand is made by Cebes about the immortality of the

soul. Cebes questions Socrates claim that the soul remains active and alert after death. He believes that after death, the body has no hold on the soul and so the soul is dispersed like breath or smoke, has flown away and gone and is no longer anything anywhere (Plato, 70a). He also believes that many men of Athens doubt this claim as well. The demand that Cebes makes shows his fear of death and the unknown. Since people cannot come back from the dead, anything that happens after death is unknown to the living, and this is something that Cebes fears. He hopes that Socrates explanation will relieve some of his fears. Socrates uses two arguments in his explanation of the soul being immortal. His first argument is that opposites come from opposites. The point that Socrates makes for this is that if being alive and dead are opposites. If you are alive, you will eventually die, and his assumption is that the living come from the dead. Since the living come from the dead, the souls have to continue living so that they can inhabit the living. This means that the soul cannot die, and is therefore immortal. The other argument that Socrates uses is that learning is recollection. This argument states that all learning is recollected from the past. This means that we can remember one thing after being reminded of it from another thing. This argument would only be possible if the soul existed elsewhere before it took on a human form. If the soul existed elsewhere before it took on a human form, then it has to be immortal.

Socrates argument that opposites come from opposites has some weaknesses. One of the weaknesses can be shown in the following conversation between Socrates and Cebes: You tell me in the same way about life and death. Do you not say that to be dead is the opposite of being alive? I do. And they come to be from one another? Yes. What comes to be from being alive? Being dead. And what comes to be from being dead? One must agree that it is being alive (Plato, 71d). In this conversation, Socrates and Cebes discuss the opposite of death, which they claim is the opposite of being alive. They are assuming that being dead is the opposite of being alive, but since they have never experienced death, they dont know if it is actually the opposite of being dead. This puts a flaw in his argument. Another weakness in Socrates argument is his claim that opposites come from opposites. Not everything comes from its opposite. Something may change to the opposite of what it is now, but it may not be able to go back to its original form. For example, a caterpillar may be able to change to its opposite, which is a butterfly, but a butterfly is not able to change back into a caterpillar. These weaknesses show that although Socrates can be very persuasive and some of the points of his arguments are very valid, not everything is concrete.

Works Cited Plato, and G. M.A. Grube. "Phaedo." Five Dialogues. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub., 2002. 93-154. Print.