These slides are from lectures on Plato's Phaedo at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. We did not read the entire work, and these slides only talk about what we did read.

1. Plato, Phaedo
PHIL 102, Hendricks, Fall 2015
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787), public domain on Wikimedia Commons

2. What we’ll discuss from
Phaedo
• Plato’s idea of “the forms”
• Why, according to Socrates, the
philosopher should not be afraid of death
• Arguments for why the soul continues after
death

3. Quotes about “forms”
Euthyphro p. 7
Phaedo pp. 6,
12

4. What are forms?
• The essential nature of properties that
many things share (such as justice,
beauty, goodness)
o or the essential nature of a class of
things (such as triangles, circles, trees,
humans)

5. About the forms
• Universally, objectively true, never
changing
• Exist outside of our heads
• Grasped through reason, not senses
2+2=4

6. From Plato’s “Seventh Letter”
• Definition of the thing or property in words
or thoughts
• Images or physical objects that have the
form
• Knowledge of the truth
about the form
• The form itself—only
this is unchanging

7. Seen and unseen (12)
Visible Invisible/intelligible
Physical objects,
images, sounds
Forms
Grasped through
senses
Grasped through
reason
Compound/composit
e (multiple parts)
Simple unities
Changing,
dissolvable
Unchanging, not
dissolvable

8. Problems w/knowledge from
senses
Sensible objects are changeable & not
always purely “just,” “beautiful,” etc.
Can appear differently acc. to perspective

9. Why should we think forms
exist?
• Mathematical truths
• Moral objectivism & moral relativism
o Concerns with moral relativism?
o Forms allow for moral objectivism
• Where do we get knowledge
of perfect archetypes?

10. Fear of death
What reasons does Socrates give in
Apology and Phaedo for why he’s not
afraid of death?

11. What is the “soul” in Phaedo?
• Different from & separable from body
o Continues after death
o Can be reborn into a new body
• The mind & reason, rather than “loves,
lusts, fears…” (6)

12. Why philosophers should not fear
death
• What is Socrates’ argument
on pp. 4-7?
• Criticizing arguments:
o Are the premises true or
likely to be true?
o If we assume the
premises true, does the
conclusion follow
necessarily or with high
probability?
Socrates, British Museum, by Marie-
Lan Nguyen, on Wikimedia Commons,
licensed CC BY 2.5

13. Arguments for soul continuing
after death
• “Argument from Opposites” (9-11)
o Talk about in discussion meetings
• “Argument from Affinity” (11-14)
o See below…

14. Arg. from affinity
1. There are two kinds of things: “the seen
and the unseen” (12)—see earlier slide
• Seen is visible, changeable, dissolvable;
unseen is none of these
2. The body is more like the seen, the soul
like the unseen
• Soul invisible
• When soul tries to get knowledge thru body
(senses), is confused; only gets truth by itself
• Soul is naturally ruler: like divine
Therefore, the soul is “almost or altogether
indissoluble” (14)