The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro; Apology; Crito; Phaedo (Penguin Classics)

Product Information

D.R. Campbell argued 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." [28] Plato's Phaedo had a significant readership throughout antiquity, and was commented on by a number of ancient philosophers, such as Harpocration of Argos, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Paterius, Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus and Proclus. [29] The two most important commentaries on the dialogue that have come down to us from the ancient world are those by Olympiodorus of Alexandria and Damascius of Athens. [30]

Campbell, Douglas 2021. "Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul." Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (4): 523-544. The Phaedo has come to be considered a seminal formulation, from which "a whole range of dualities, which have become deeply ingrained in Western philosophy, theology, and psychology over two millennia, received their classic formulation: soul and body, mind and matter, intellect and sense, reason and emotion, reality and appearance, unity and plurality, perfection and imperfection, immortal and mortal, permanence and change, eternal and temporal, divine and human, heaven and earth." [31] Texts and translations [ edit ] Original texts [ edit ]Solmsen, Friedrich. 1955. “Antecedents of Aristotle’s Psychology and the Scale of Beings.” American Journal of Philology 76: 148–64. It is not at all clear how these two roles of the soul are related to each other. But we observe this casual oscillation nevertheless throughout the dialogue and indeed throughout the whole corpus. For instance, consider this passage from Republic I: Is there any function of the soul that you could not accomplish with anything else, such as taking care of something ( epimeleisthai), ruling, and deliberating, and other such things? Could we correctly assign these things to anything besides the soul, and say that they are characteristic ( idia) of it? Plato worked his whole life to rationally prove, without a doubt, the existence of a higher plane of existence and higher truths which informed the visible world. In the last dialogue he would write, Laws, he was still trying and still not quite succeeding. Plato's works may be read as one life-long refutation of Protagoras' relativity.

See Campbell 2021: 524 n. 1 for more examples of scholars hurling this problem at Plato's feet, both in the English-language scholarship and abroad. Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus. Greek with translation by Harold N. Fowler. Loeb Classical Library 36. Harvard Univ. Press (originally published 1914).

Success!

Again, we see here the dogmatist who feels upright and superior to all the hypocrites around him – a typical academic attitude, which can be seen in many academics in our own time as well. The feeling of superior knowledge and the position that entitles someone to exclaim truths – never mind all the fallacies involved here. Campbell, Douglas (2021). "Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul." Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (4): 523-544.

Meanwhile, in the recollection and affinity arguments, the connection with life is not explicated or used at all. These two arguments present the soul as a knower (i.e., a mind). This is most clear in the affinity argument, where the soul is said to be immortal in virtue of its affinity with the Forms that we observe in acts of cognition. It's strange to reread a text that I first read when I was young, idealistic, optimistic, and believed that the expunging of those who questioned conventional thinking was the exception, not the rule. So I made myself spokesman for the oracle, and asked myself whether I would rather be as I was—neither wise with their wisdom nor ignorant with their ignorance—or possess both qualities as they did. I replied through myself to the oracle that it was best for me to be as I was.’ For example. "Everyone, even the actual god Apollo, says I'm the smartest person in the world. .. But really guys I'm not." Yeah that sounds 100% sincere, man. I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true.Holmes, Daniel. 2008. "Practicing Death in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis and Plato's Phaedo". Classical Journal, 104(1): 43-57. Aristotle began as a pupil of Plato. Plotinus and his successors at Alexandria in the 3rd century developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts. Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinascombined Neoplatonism with the doctrines of Aristotle within a context of Christian thought. Bobonich, Christopher. 2002. "Philosophers and Non-Philosophers in the Phaedo and the Republic." In Plato's Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics, 1–88. Oxford: Clarendon. Irwin, Terence. 1999. "The Theory of Forms". [In] Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology, 143–170. Edited by Gail Fine. Oxford Readings in Philosophy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.