Study Questions for Plato’s Phaedo

1. Why did Socrates think that suicide was not an acceptable way of ending one’s life? (62b-c)
2. In what sense are philosophers practicing for dying all their lives? (64a-69e)
3. 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?
4. The "Argument from Recollection" runs from 72e-77a.  What does Socrates illustrate with the example of the lyre?
5. 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)
6. 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)
7. What other possibility (other than being born with this knowledge) does Socrates present (and then accept)? (75e-76b)
8. 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)
9. What further matter does Cebes raise, and how does Socrates reply? (77b-d)
10. How does Socrates argue that the soul, unlike the body, is not the sort of thing that could “dissolve and scatter”? (78b-80c)
11. 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)
12. How do philosophers care for their souls? (82d-83c)
13. How are violent pleasures and pains like rivets?  (83d) What is the point of Simias’ analogy of the soul to harmony and the body to a lyre and its strings? (85e-86d)
14. What is the point of Cebes’ story about the weaver and his cloaks? (87a-88b)
15. What is Socrates’ explanation of the fact that some people become misologues (haters of reason)? (89d-90d)
16. How does Socrates argue that Simmias’ view of the soul as a kind of harmony is inconsistent with the theory that learning is recollection? (91e-92e)
17. How does Socrates argue that thinking of the soul as a kind of harmony is inconsistent with several common-sense beliefs about souls? (93a-95a)
18. Why was Socrates first delighted and then disappointed with Anaxagoras’ views? (97c-99b)
19. What does Socrates think is the “real cause” of his being there (in prison) talking to his friends?
20. “It is true then about some of these things that not only the Form itself deserves its name for all time, but there is something else that is not the Form but has its character whenever it exists.” (103e) Can you explain Socrates’ meaning here? (Examples: the number three is necessarily and always odd; fire is hot and cannot become cold.)
21. How does Socrates go on to use this idea to argue for the immortality of the soul? (104e-107a)
22. What do you make of Socrates story about the layers of the earth?  Do you think he really believes this myth?
23. What do you think of the way Socrates died?