Phaedo by Plato help?

Question:Hi everyone,
I have read Phaedo by Plato and found it confusing. Can someone please explain the different "proofs" that Socrates makes in the story in lameness terms?
Thank you so much,
Athena

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Hi everyone,
I have read Phaedo by Plato and found it confusing. Can someone please explain the different "proofs" that Socrates makes in the story in lameness terms?
Thank you so much,
Athena

The dialogue covers lots of ground. But we can probably touch on some of the main points.

The first part of centers around why death should not be feared. Socrates argues that since much of philosophy is about reasoning and the kinds of things that only the mind can see, the body can really only be a hindrance, and being rid of it a blessing. He then observes that this doesn't justify suicide since our bodies are the property of the gods and we are bound to care for them thusly.

This turns the dialogue in a new direction. How can Socrates be so sure the an afterlife even exists? He presents a number of (pretty poor, actually) arguments.

The first is often called the 'argument of opposites'. To make this argument, Socrates invokes a kind of dualism. All things, he argues, have opposite natures and one opposite comes from the other. You can only fall asleep if you are awake, and you can only wake up if you are asleep. He suggests that this demonstrates that the only way a new life can be made is if it is made FROM DEATH. Or, in other words, that all babies must have souls from previously deceased creatures. Which, of course, means those souls must be drawn from somewhere... the afterlife.

The next argument Socrates makes is the 'argument of recollection'. In several of Socrates' dialogues he suggests that learning is actually more akin to remembering stuff you already know than actually gaining new information. He claims that because the right line of questions can lead even an ignorant person to the correct answer, this must show that everyone really knew all the answers to begin with. This demonstrates that there is an afterlife, Socrates argues, because that's the only place to pick up such a large supply of knowledge.

His third argument is the 'affinity' argument. Quite simply, he argues that since the body is substantial it must behave like substantial things, and because the soul is insubstantial it must not. Though the body is prone to corruption and decay, the soul is more like the divine, invulnerable and immortal.

Even in the dialogue they raise objections at this point. Recollection may demonstrate a PRE-life, but not necessarily an AFTER-life.

This all leads to the last argument which seems to satify the characters in the dialogue and which most readers of Plato will recognise as his theory of forms. Basically he argues that before a person can make (for example) a chair, he has to have an idea of a chair in his head. And even if the chair he makes is later destroyed, the idea is still there, completely unharmed. This is Socrates' vision of life - before we existed, there must have been some ideal version of us that served as a blueprint for the forces in the universe to create us. While we life, the two are bound together in purpose and identity. And after death, the body is gone but the idea lives on, still behaving as we ideally would. This is the soul.

Of course, even though this is enough for the characters in the dialogue, there have been plenty of philosophers quite happy to poke holes in all the arguments here. Still, not only is it beyond the purview of your question, I've probably nattered on long enough. Hope that helps!