Phaedo by Plato Analysis Essay

“The body keeps us busy in a thousand ways because of its needs for nurture… it fills us with wants, desires, fears, all sorts of illusions and much nonsense, so that, as it is said, in truth and in fact no thought of any kind ever comes to us from the Body. Only the body and its desires cause war, civil discord and battles, for all wars are due to the desire to acquire wealth, and it is the body and the care of it, to which we are enslaved, which compel us to acquire wealth, and all of this makes us too busy to practice philosophy” (Plato, Phaedo, 66B-66E). When I began reading Phaedo, I immediately wanted to rip out my hair. I felt as though Phaedo was far too complex for what it seemed to be, quickly giving me a headache as I attempted to dive deeper into the text. When I read this quote above, however, it all made sense as to why I could not symply sit down and read it. The quote really hit the nail on the head for me. Since moving to Lexington, I have been extremely stressed out and busy 24/7. Since we are too busy with our wants, fears, and desires, we simply do not have the time to just take a break and truly think about knowledge and reality. I also think it’s really interesting because if you’re too busy all the time and constantly anxious, it’s hard to be in a calm state of mind. I really had to take time to calm down and focus whenever I read Phaedo. It took a lot out of me at first, but because of the quote above, I figured out why I struggled so much with the reading. 

One thing I do not understand about the text is the theory of forms. “I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else. And if I stick to this I think I shall never fall [e] into error. This is the safe answer for me or anyone else to give, namely, that it is through Beauty that beautiful things are made beautiful.” (Plato, Phaedo, 100D-100E). I understand that Socretes believes beautiful things are made beautiful and beauty participates in the form of beauty. However, how would things be made beautiful and participate in the form of beauty if someone else identifies something else as beautiful? I may think a rose is beautiful but you may think that a rose is the ugliest flower in the world. So how would a rose participate in the form of beauty if we all have different perspectives of beauty? Or is beauty something that, like other things Platos clings to, a consensus of the majority? Is there such a thing as beauty, or is it foolish to suggest the idea truly exists as a fixed form?

A question I have about Phaedo is how many bodys does our souls have to go through until it is destroyed? “Cebes, I thought, [d] agrees with me that the soul lasts much longer than the body, but that no one knows whether the soul often wears out many bodies and then, on leaving its last body, is now itself destroyed. This then is death, the destruction of the soul, since the body is always being destroyed. Are these the questions, Simmias and Cebes, which we must investigate? They both agreed that they were” (Plato, Phaedo, 91A-91E). I understand that Cebes and the others believe that the soul lasts longer than the body, but how many bodys will you have to go through until your soul is eventually destroyed? I have a couple of theories for my question, my first theory is that essentially when your soul is finally enlightened and you’re able to just take a break and truly think about knowledge and reality is when your soul finally gets destroyed or turns into nothing. I also have another theory that possibly there is a “body count” until your soul will eventually be destroyed. Contradicting my other theory, how would your soul know that you’re enlightened or knowledgeable about philosophy? There possibly could be a certain amount of bodys you will live through until you’re destroyed. I believe it is a certain number of bodys you’ll live through, rather than being a certain amount of time. If you have a certain amount of time with your soul, what happens if your soul dies while being inside an 18 year old healthy boy? You wouldn’t just magically just die. You’d have to wait until your body dies before your soul could be destroyed with it. Or what if there is no such thing as true annihilation?