Contents
29 found
Order:
  1. Analyzing Socrates' Four Arguments for the Soul’s Immortality in the Phaedo: Uncovering Informal Fallacies, Clarifying Ambiguities, and Addressing Inconsistencies.Wesley De Sena - manuscript
    In this paper, I contend that Socrates' four arguments for the soul's immortality fail to provide conclusive proof. Instead, these arguments can be seen as attempts to infer the most plausible explanation. However, a closer examination reveals that Socrates' best explanation relies on a sequence of informal fallacies and ambiguities, ultimately resulting in inconsistencies within his comprehensive argument. These fallacies, ambiguities, and inconsistencies will become evident as we delve into Socrates' four arguments for soul immortality in the Phaedo.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. The philosopher’s Reward: Contemplation and Immortality in Plato’s Dialogues.Suzanne Obdrzalek - forthcoming - In Alex Long (ed.), Immortality in Ancient Philosophy.
    In dialogues ranging from the Symposium to the Timaeus, Plato appears to propose that the philosopher’s grasp of the forms may confer immortality upon him. Whatever can Plato mean in making such a claim? What does he take immortality to consist in, such that it could constitute a reward for philosophical enlightenment? And how is this proposal compatible with Plato’s insistence throughout his corpus that all soul, not just philosophical soul, is immortal? In this chapter, I pursue these questions by (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. "Platonic Dualism Reconsidered".Suzanne Obdrzalek - 2024 - Phronesis 69 (1):31-62.
    I argue that in the Phaedo, Plato maintains that the soul is located in space and is capable of locomotion and of interacting with the body through contact. Numerous interpreters have dismissed these claims as merely metaphorical, since they assume that as an incorporeal substance, the soul cannot possess spatial attributes. But careful examination of how Plato conceives of the body throughout his corpus reveals that he does not distinguish it from the soul in terms of spatiality. Furthermore, assigning spatial (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Plato on Sunaitia.Douglas R. Campbell - 2023 - Apeiron 56 (4):739-768.
    I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Plato's Phaedo: Forms, Death, and the Philosophical Life.David Ebrey - 2023 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Plato's Phaedo is a literary gem that develops many of his most famous ideas. David Ebrey's careful reinterpretation argues that the many debates about the dialogue cannot be resolved so long as we consider its passages in relative isolation from one another, separated from their intellectual background. His book shows how Plato responds to his literary, religious, scientific, and philosophical context, and argues that we can only understand the dialogue's central ideas and arguments in light of its overall structure. This (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  6. The Phaedo as an Alternative to Tragedy.David Ebrey - 2023 - Classical Philology 118 (2):153-171.
    This article argues that the Phaedo is written as a new sort of story of how a hero faces death; this story provides an alternative to existing tragedy, as understood by Plato. The opening of the Phaedo makes clear that two features that Plato closely associates with tragedy, pity and lamentation, are inappropriate responses to Socrates’ impending death, and that tuchē (chance) did not affect his happiness. This is the first step in the dialogue’s sustained engagement with tragedy. Tragedy for (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Self-Killing in Plato's Phaedo.Adele Watkins - 2023 - Dissertation, Princeton University
    This dissertation investigates Plato’s prohibition on suicide at Phaedo 62b2-c9. I first lift two descriptions of death early in the text. At Phaedo 64c, Plato offers a description of physical death. A person dies physically when their body falls away from their soul. Plato goes on to offer a description of psychological death at 67c-d. A person dies psychologically when their soul has unencumbered itself from the body as much as is possible. Generally, I conclude, death is the separation of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. The Soul’s Tomb: Plato on the Body as the Cause of Psychic Disorders.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Apeiron 55 (1):119-139.
    I argue that, according to Plato, the body is the sole cause of psychic disorders. This view is expressed at Timaeus 86b in an ambiguous sentence that has been widely misunderstood by translators and commentators. The goal of this article is to offer a new understanding of Plato’s text and view. In the first section, I argue that although the body is the result of the gods’ best efforts, their sub-optimal materials meant that the soul is constantly vulnerable to the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  9. Located in Space: Plato’s Theory of Psychic Motion.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Ancient Philosophy 42 (2):419-442.
    I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally. A novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that denies the entailment that the soul is corporeal. I conclude by examining Aristotle’s objection to the Timaeus’ psychology and then the intellectual history of this reading of Plato.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. The Unfolding Account of Forms in the Phaedo.David Ebrey - 2022 - In David Ebrey & Richard Kraut (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: pp. 268-297.
    In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates calls things like justice, piety, and largeness “forms.” In several of these dialogues, he makes clear that forms are very different from familiar objects like tables and trees. Why, exactly, does he think that they differ and how are they supposed to do so? This chapter argues that in the Phaedo Socrates does not assume that they are different, but rather, over five stages of the dialogue, provides an account of how and why they do so. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. A Long Lost Relative in the Parmenides? Plato’s Family of Hypothetical Methods.Evan Rodriguez - 2022 - Apeiron 55 (1):141-166.
    The Parmenides has been unduly overlooked in discussions of hypothesis in Plato. It contains a unique method for testing first principles, a method I call ‘exploring both sides’. The dialogue recommends exploring the consequences of both a hypothesis and its contradictory and thematizes this structure throughout. I challenge the view of Plato’s so-called ‘method of hypothesis’ as an isolated stage in Plato’s development; instead, the evidence of the Parmenides suggests a family of distinct hypothetical methods, each with its own peculiar (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Causes in Plato’s Phaedo.Michael Wiitala - 2022 - Plato Journal 23:37-50.
    As Socrates recounts his search for causes (aitiai) in the Phaedo, he identifies the following as genuine causes: intelligence (nous), seeming best, choice of the best, and the forms. I argue that these causes should be understood as norms prescribing the conditions their effects must meet if those effects are to be produced. Thus, my account both explains what Socrates’ causes are and the way in which they cause what they cause.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul.Douglas R. Campbell - 2021 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (4):523-544.
    I argue that Plato believes that the soul must be both the principle of motion and the subject of cognition because it moves things specifically by means of its thoughts. I begin by arguing that the soul moves things by means of such acts as examination and deliberation, and that this view is developed in response to Anaxagoras. I then argue that every kind of soul enjoys a kind of cognition, with even plant souls having a form of Aristotelian discrimination (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  14. Review of Samuel Scolnicov, Plato’s Method of Hypothesis in the Middle Dialogues, edited by Harold Tarrant. [REVIEW]Evan Rodriguez - 2019 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 57 (3):549-550.
    This volume, a lightly-edited version of Professor Samuel Scolnicov’s 1974 Ph.D. thesis, is a fitting tribute to his impressive career. It will perhaps be most useful for those interested in better understanding Scolnicov’s work and his views on Plato as a whole, not least for the comprehensive list of his publications that requires a full twelve pages of print. Scholars with an interest in Plato’s method of hypothesis will also find some useful remarks on key passages in the Meno, Phaedo, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. The Asceticism of the Phaedo: Pleasure, Purification, and the Soul’s Proper Activity.David Ebrey - 2017 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99 (1):1-30.
    I argue that according to Socrates in the Phaedo we should not merely evaluate bodily pleasures and desires as worthless or bad, but actively avoid them. We need to avoid them because they change our values and make us believe falsehoods. This change in values and acceptance of falsehoods undermines the soul’s proper activity, making virtue and happiness impossible for us. I situate this account of why we should avoid bodily pleasures within Plato’s project in the Phaedo of providing Pythagorean (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  16. Annotated Bibliography on Plato's Phaedo.David Ebrey - 2017 - Oxford Bibliographies.
    8000 Word annotated bibliography on the Phaedo, with roughly 70 entries. Note that the subscription version is a bit easier to navigate. The hyperlinks work in this pdf, but you can not as easily jump to the different sections.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. O PROBLEMA DA PARTICIPAÇÃO NOS DIÁLOGOS DE PLATÃO: FÉDON, REPÚBLICA, PARMÊNIDES E SOFISTA.Otacilio Luciano de Sousa Neto - 2017 - Dissertation, Universidade Federal Do Ceará, Brazil
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Phaedo 100B3-9.Ravi Sharma - 2015 - Mnemosyne 68 (3):393-412.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  19. Misologie und Misanthropie in Platons Phaidon.Ulrich Diehl - 2013 - In H.-J. Gerigk / H. Koopmann (ed.), Hass. Darstellung und Deutung in den Wissenschaften und Künsten. Mattes Verlag.
    Das Thema der Misologie und Misanthropie lässt sich wie so viele anderen philosophischen Themen der europäischen Geistesgeschichte bis zu einem platonischen Dialog zurückverfolgen. In diesem Fall handelt es sich um Platons berühmten Dialog Phaidon. Nun handelt dieser Dialog bekanntlich von der Frage nach der Unsterblichkeit der menschlichen Seele. Dennoch verweist Sokrates an einer bestimmten Stelle des Dialoges auf die für den Menschen drohenden Gefahren der Misologie und der Misanthropie hin, dem Hass auf die Vernunft und den Hass auf den Menschen, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Wisdom – Knowledge – Belief. The Problem of Demarcation in Plato’s “Phaedo”.Artur Pacewicz - 2013 - Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia 8.
    The aim of the present paper is to show how Plato suggested demarcating between knowledge and other kinds of human intellectual activities. The article proposes to distinguish between two ways of such a demarcation. The first, called `the external demarcation', takes place when one differentiates between knowledge and non-knowledge, the rational and non-rational or the reasonable and non-reasonable. The second, called `internal', marks the difference within knowledge itself and could be illustrated by the difference between the so called hard and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Rethinking Plato: A Cartesian Quest for the Real Plato.Necip Fikri Alican - 2012 - Amsterdam and New York: Brill | Rodopi.
    This book is a quest for the real Plato, forever hiding behind the veil of drama. The quest, as the subtitle indicates, is Cartesian in that it looks for Plato independently of the prevailing paradigms on where we are supposed to find him. The result of the quest is a complete pedagogical platform on Plato. This does not mean that the book leaves nothing out, covering all the dialogues and all the themes, but that it provides the full intellectual apparatus (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  22. « The Form Of Soul In The Phaedo ».Brian Prince - 2012 - Plato 11 11.
    Although the Phaedo never mentions a Form of Soul explicitly, the dialogue implies this Form’s existence. First, a number of passages in which Socrates describes his views about Forms imply that there are very many Forms; thus, Socrates’ general description of his theory gives no ground for denying that there is a Form of Soul. Second, the final argument for immortality positively requires a Form of Soul.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. Essay Review of Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic. [REVIEW]Mitchell Miller - 2007 - International Journal of the Classical Tradition 13 (4):628-633.
    The essays in this collection, though ranging in their keys from the teacherly to the scholarly, are united by their search for the deepest questions Plato gives us. The title essay on the Republic is a paradigm case, exploring with a mix of speculative daring and Socratic pleasure in aporia the ring structure of the dialogue, the emergent perspective of a "knowing soul," dianoetic eikasia, and the implicit presence of the One and the Dyad in the metaphysical figures of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. Logic and Music in Plato's Phaedo.Dominic Bailey - 2005 - Phronesis 50 (2):95-115.
    This paper aims to achieve a better understanding of what Socrates means by “sumfvne›n” in the sections of the Phaedo in which he uses the word, and how its use contributes both to the articulation of the hypothetical method and the proof of the soul’s immortality. Section I sets out the well-known problems for the most obvious readings of the relation, while Sections II and III argue against two remedies for these problems, the first an interpretation of what the sumfvne› (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Sul significato di δεύτερος πλοῦς nel Fedone di Platone.Stefano Martinelli Tempesta - 2003 - In M. Bonazzi & F. Trabbatoni (eds.), Platone e la Tradizione Platonica. Milan: Monduzzi Editore. pp. 89-125.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  26. Why is Evenus Called a Philosopher at Phaedo 61c?Theodor Ebert - 2001 - Classical Quarterly 51 (2):423-434.
    I contend that “philosophos” is meant to carry the connotation of a Pythagorean: Euenus is a native from Paros which had a strong Pythagorean community down to the end of the fifth century. Moreover, “philosophos” was used to refer to the Pythagoreans, as can be seen from the story related by Cicero from Heraclides Ponticus (Tusc. Disp. V, iii, 7-8; cp. DL, 1.12; 8.8). I argue (against Burkert) that even if this story is part of the lore surrounding Pythagoras and, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  27. “συμφωνειν” in Plato's Phaedo.Jyl Gentzler - 1991 - Phronesis 36 (3):265 - 276.
    In Socrates' account of his earlier investigations into the nature of causation in the "Phaedo", he describes a method that uses hypotheses. He posited as true those propositions that appeared to harmonize ("sumphonein") with his hypothesis and as false those propositions that failed to harmonize with his hypothesis. Earlier commentators on this passage have maintained that it is impossible to give a univocal reading of the occurrences of "sumphonein"' such that the method that Socrates describes is at all reasonable. It (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  28. Forms and Causes in Plato's Phaedo.Christopher Byrne - 1989 - Dionysius 13:3-15.
    Gregory Vlastos has argued that Aristotle and other commentators on the Phaedo have mistakenly interpreted Plato’s Forms to be efficient causes. While Vlastos is correct that the Forms by themselves are not efficient causes, because of his neo-Kantianism he has misunderstood the close connection between the Forms and the explanation of change, including teleological change. This paper explores the connection in Plato’s Phaedo between the Forms, the nature of change, and efficient causality, and argues that Aristotle’s remarks are not as (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  29. The grammatical puzzles of Socrates' last words.Michael Eisenstadt - manuscript
    Socrates says "we owe" in the last words as head of his οἶκος, a collectivity owing a debt for the recovery from disease of one of Socrates' young sons. Socrates addresses Crito in the plural as head of his οἶκος, whose servants will perform the sacrifice as their master directs. Socrates had instructed that the youngest son be brought to the prison. The baby's presence is not adventitious, for had Socrates primarily summoned Xanthippe, the baby would have been left at (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark