Study Questions for Plato’s Phaedo, Part One
(to 84c, p.123)
- Why did Socrates think that suicide was not an
acceptable way of ending one’s life? (62b-c)
- In what sense are philosophers practicing for
dying all their lives? (64a-69e)
- Consider
the "Argument from Opposites" at 70c-72a. Socrates claims that
for any pair of opposites one comes to be from the other. What does he
mean by this? What are some of the examples of opposites that he uses to
explicate this claim? Are ‘alive' and ‘dead' opposites in the same sense
as those examples? If not, why not?
- The
"Argument from Recollection" runs from 72e-77a. What does Socrates illustrate with the
example of the lyre?
- Why does Socrates think that we must have
knowledge of “the Equal” (the form
of equality) and not just of equal (and unequal) things? (74a-75a)
- What reason does he give for thinking that we
must have acquired this knowledge (of ‘the Equal’ and of the other forms)
before we were born? (75b-d)
- What
other possibility (other than being born with this knowledge) does
Socrates present (and then accept)? (75e-76b)
- How
does Socrates argue that our knowledge of the forms is not present from
birth (and thus that our later knowledge must be recollection of knowledge
that precedes birth)? (76b-e)
- What
further matter does Cebes raise, and how does Socrates reply? (77b-d)
- How
does Socrates argue that the soul, unlike the body, is not the sort of
thing that could “dissolve and scatter”? (78b-80c)
- What
does Socrates say is the fate of peoples’ souls after they die, and how
does this depend on the way they have lived? (80d-82b)
- How do
philosophers care for their souls? (82d-83c)
- How
are violent pleasures and pains like rivets? (83d)