Phaedo

In his dialogue the Phaedo, Plato expounded a theory of literally innate ideas; humans, for example, have a conception of exact Equality, which, since it could not have been supplied by the senses, must have been acquired by the soul before it was embodied (see also reincarnation).

…(they are criticized in the Phaedo and the Republic but receive respectful mention in the Philebus). It is thought that his three trips to Syracuse in Sicily (many of the Letters concern these, though their authenticity is controversial) led to a deep personal attachment to Dion (408–354 bce), brother-in-law

…in the middle dialogues Symposium, Phaedo, and Republic, the exchange is usually interpreted as a negative assessment by Plato of the adequacy of his earlier presentation. Those who consider the first part of the Parmenides in isolation tend to suppose that Plato had heroically come to grips with the unviability…

The Phaedo culminates in the affecting death of Socrates, before which he discusses a theme apposite to the occasion: the immortality of the soul (treated to some extent following Pythagorean and Orphic precedent). The dialogue features characteristically Platonic elements: the recollection theory of knowledge and the…

…of a manuscript of Plato’s Phaedo (c. 100 ce; Egypt Exploration Society, London) shares the informality of cursive but regularizes the letter forms. Written on a larger scale and with more formality, this round hand can be very beautiful. In an example found at Hawara (2nd century ce), almost every…

In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates states that the sole purpose of practicing philosophy “is to practice for dying and death.” Rather than being a morbid directive, the statement espouses mastering one’s fear of death by recognizing the body’s mortal reality and pursuing knowledge, which nurtures the immortal soul.

…to works such as Republic, Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Philebus for a historically accurate account of the thought of Socrates—even though they contain a speaker called Socrates who argues for certain philosophical positions and opposes others. At the same time, we can explain why Plato uses the literary character of Socrates…

…condemnation of Socrates) and the Phaedo (a portrayal of Socrates’ last hours and death)—he brilliantly re-creates the response of an extraordinary character to the crisis of existence. Some 400 years later there came into being four lives of Jesus, the profound religious significance of which has inevitably obscured their originality—their…

Plato, in the Phaedo, argued that the soul is inherently indestructible. To destroy something, including the body, is to disintegrate it into its constituent elements; but the soul, as a mental entity, is not composed of parts and is thus an indissoluble unity. Although Aquinas’s concept of the…