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A Note on Plato's “Cyclical Argument” in the Phaedo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1966

Julian Wolfe
Affiliation:
Brock University

Extract

The so-called ‘cyclical argument’ for immortality in the Phaedo represents an endeavour to give philosophical respectability to the ancient religious doctrine of the cycle or wheel of rebirth. According to this, the soul is reincarnated after the death of its body and a short period in the ‘other world’ in a purely disembodied state. Socrates sets himself the task of proving that a soul animating a new body must previously have animated another body whose death antedates the life of the new body.

Type
Discussions/Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1966

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