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7 - The Return to the Defense

80d–84b

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2023

David Ebrey
Affiliation:
Universitat de Barcelona
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Summary

Socrates here draws on the cyclical and kinship arguments to further explain nearly every claim made earlier in the defense speech (Chapter 3). He provides an interconnected account of virtue, happiness, moral psychology, reincarnation, and soul–body interaction. He first describes how coming to know the divine will ultimately allow the philosopher’s soul to spend the afterlife with the gods, eternally happy. By contrast, non-philosophers reincarnate because their desire for the body-like pulls them into a new body after death. Understanding this mechanism requires clarifying how Socrates thinks of the impurities in non-philosophers’ souls. After examining this, the chapter turns to how the body deceives the soul into desiring things that are not good for it. Socrates develops the account of true courage and temperance from the exchange passage (69a–e) to explain how the philosopher avoids and resists the body’s insidious effects so that the soul can pursue wisdom and so be eternally happy.

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Chapter
Information
Plato's Phaedo
Forms, Death, and the Philosophical Life
, pp. 162 - 183
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • The Return to the Defense
  • David Ebrey, Universitat de Barcelona
  • Book: Plato's <I>Phaedo</I>
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108787475.008
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • The Return to the Defense
  • David Ebrey, Universitat de Barcelona
  • Book: Plato's <I>Phaedo</I>
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108787475.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Return to the Defense
  • David Ebrey, Universitat de Barcelona
  • Book: Plato's <I>Phaedo</I>
  • Online publication: 02 February 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108787475.008
Available formats
×