1. PLATO (427-347 BCE) Student of Socrates Author of Dialogues
Teacher of Aristotle
Founder of 1st university, Academy
Theories of the Forms, the Soul, Love, Justice

2. Plato’s Phaedo Socrates & companions, last day of his life
Literature, not history
3 themes:
Meaning of Socratic life
Nature/immortality of the soul
Doctrine of Forms (Ideas)
Socratic existence  Platonic metaphysics

3. Structure of the Phaedo
Part I: philosophical life
Preface 57a-59d: settings/frame
Prologue 59d-69e: art of dying
Part II: Immortality + the Forms
Initial logoi –3 proofs + mythos (70a-84b)
INTERLUDE 84c-91c
Final logoi/mythos
Reply to Simmias
Autobiography
Final argument
Mythos 107c-115a
Part III: Epilogue 115a-118a: death

4. Exploratory Discussions
Setting 57a-63e
Frame/Pythagoreans, myth of Theseus 57a f.
2nd “Trial”: Is there reason for hope? 63c
Q’s re: philosophy & living/dying 63e-70a
What is “death”? 64c vs. 67cd vs. 70a;
Is there an art of living/dying?
An art of moral life? 64c-65a’
An art of intellectual life? 65b-67b “
Note: body” = cause of war, 66b-67b; common honor-based vs. philosophical morality 67b-69b
Mythos and logos in the dialogue
Can the soul live without mythos?

5. 2 basic philosophical questions
What is the relationship of the soul to the body?
Materialism:
Soul depends on or reduces to body
Dualism
Soul is a separate reality from the body [Pythagoreans]
Personalism
Soul is distinct from body but depends on it
What is the relationship of thought to the world?
Empiricism/perceptibles:
Concepts and language depend on/reduce to sense-data/percepts
Platonic Rationalism/”Forms”
Concepts and language organize/inform sense-experience and transcend it

6. Socratic Existence/Ethics: the Examined Life in 2 dimensions
Socratic intellectual conscience, rationalism
Knowledge of ignorance: quest for ethical knowledge (Apol. 21a f.)
Ethical self-knowledge: recognizes his own principles, can defend them (Apol. 28b f., Crito)
Virtues of Intellect
Socratic moral conscience, idealism
Willing to act on his own principles (Crito)
Basic principles:
Never do wrong
Good = virtue and truth/education, vs. wealth and status (Apol. 28b f., Gorgias)
Virtues of Character

7. Prologos: philosophy = art of living/dying
2 Challenges (63be):
Disprove it is irrational to be a ‘theist’ re: the human soul, i.e. immortality not impossible
Prove it is rational to be a ‘theist’ re: the human soul i.e. good reasons it is
Socrates answers:
The human soul has properties that transcend the physical world:
Virtues of Character 64c-65a
Knowledge of the Forms 65a-66b
These  possible ‘immortality’* 66b-67e
*note 2 defns of death/dying 64c, 67d

8. What is the art of dying? Dying1 = physical Dying2 = “catharsis”
Moral detachment from worldly desires
Intellectual detachment from empiricism
= Socratic art of the examined life

9. Phaedo and Stoic Art of Living
Ascetic life-style and Moral Virtue
‘Reason’ and Intellectual Virtue
Dying = katharsis and “detachment” from passions for worldly goods
Negative Visualization
Trichotomizing
Internalizing
Role of Critical Reason/reflection in “a good life”