Uploaded December 2023 | Updated September 2026, 58 minutes ago
In the remote Peloponnesian township of Phlius, Echecrates encounters Phaedo of Elis, one of the men present during Socrates' final hours. Echecrates presses Phaedo to tell what happened.
A number of Socrates' friends were gathered in his cell. The account begins with Socrates proposing that though suicide is wrong, a true philosopher should look forward to death. The soul, Socrates asserts, is immortal, and the philosopher spends his life training it to detach itself from the needs of the body.
He provides four arguments for this claim.
The first is that death is the opposite of life, and so living things come to be out of dead things and vice versa. This implies that there is a perpetual cycle of life and death.
The second is the Theory of Recollection which suggests that all learning is a matter of recollecting what we already know. We forget much of our knowledge at birth, and can be made to recollect this knowledge through proper questioning.
The third is the Argument from Affinity. Socrates draws a distinction between those things that are immaterial, invisible, and immortal, and those things which are material, visible, and perishable. The body is of the second kind, whereas the soul is of the first kind. This would suggest that the soul ought to be immortal and survive death.
Socrates concludes with a myth of what happens to souls after death. Then he drinks the poisonous hemlock, and drifts imperceptibly from this world to the next. (Produced and Performed by Vincent Bagnall. 185 min)
In the remote Peloponnesian township of Phlius, Echecrates encounters Phaedo of Elis, one of the men present during Socrates' final hours. Echecrates presses Phaedo to tell what happened.
A number of Socrates' friends were gathered in his cell. The account begins with Socrates proposing that though suicide is wrong, a true philosopher should look forward to death. The soul, Socrates asserts, is immortal, and the philosopher spends his life training it to detach itself from the needs of the body.
He provides four arguments for this claim.
The first is that death is the opposite of life, and so living things come to be out of dead things and vice versa. This implies that there is a perpetual cycle of life and death.
The second is the Theory of Recollection which suggests that all learning is a matter of recollecting what we already know. We forget much of our knowledge at birth, and can be made to recollect this knowledge through proper questioning.
The third is the Argument from Affinity. Socrates draws a distinction between those things that are immaterial, invisible, and immortal, and those things which are material, visible, and perishable. The body is of the second kind, whereas the soul is of the first kind. This would suggest that the soul ought to be immortal and survive death.
Socrates concludes with a myth of what happens to souls after death. Then he drinks the poisonous hemlock, and drifts imperceptibly from this world to the next. (Produced and Performed by Vincent Bagnall. 185 min)
