The Perfection Of Life And Death In Plato's Phaedo

In Phaedo, it is the last discussion Socrates has before his death by poison. He is in a prison cell and discusses philosophy with his dear friends. His friends are despondent that he is going to die, but Socrates is defiant of death as he believes that his soul will go to the heavens. They begin to talk about what happens after death, which brought up the topic of the immortality of the soul. As his friends question his beliefs about the immortality of the soul, Socrates does not provide a strong argument due to the fact that he constantly contradicts himself, provides inadequate examples to solidify his claims, and admits that this subject is impossible to know the correct answer to. To begin, Socrates provides a definition for death. “Death”

Socrates claims, “if these are opposites they come to be from one another, and there are two processes of generation between the two,” (Plato, 71c). This is not sufficient evidence because between those two processes, sleeping and waking is a definite cycle versus life and death. Socrates making this analogy assumes the argument that these two life processes are generally the same thing; as sleeping and death is the act of losing consciousness and being awake and living is the act of being conscious, when they are not entirely the

Socrates comes up with this proof to leave his friends with something to think about and to put their minds at ease instead of leaving them in fear. He explains by saying that the soul embodies the essence of life. Essences cannot be destroyed or be omitted to their opposites. Further, Socrates says that the soul will not be able to admit to death due to the soul being the opposite of death. He concludes that since the soul is not admitting to death, that means that the soul is indeed immortal. This may be a valid argument, but some of his claims do not make sense with his previous arguments which just makes the audience doubt what he has to