Episode 73, Plato’s Phaedo: The Death of Socrates (Part II - Arguments for the Soul’s Immortality)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Euthanasia, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Existentialism, Marxism, Kant, Ethics, Davidpapineau, Dennett, Marx, Evilgodchallenge, Cosmological, Mind, Consciousness, Courses, Nagasawa, Education, Johnstuartmill, Jeremybentham, Aristotle, Ocr, Camus, Josephfletcher, Conscience, Society & Culture, Kantianethics, Philosophy

4.8 • 604 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Let me tell you about the day Socrates drank the poison. You must be aware of his trial and apology? The Athenians have not stopped talking about it since Meletus and the others condemned him. Do not worry, he did not die in fear and nor is he truly gone. He argued his case much like he always had. He died the philosopher’s death, having practiced for it his entire life.

What does this mean? Socrates spoke persuasively about matters concerning the immortality of the soul. He said the life of a true philosopher helps the prisoner, chained hand and foot in their body, to escape from the dark cave of ignorance and into the light of wisdom. This, in turn, provides the soul with the perfect means to release itself from the body after death.

When the hour arrived, and Socrates finally took the hemlock, he did not flinch. Those of us who bore witness could not help but shed a tear – we were not as brave as the wise man who lay before us. What? You would like to hear more? Are you not convinced of the immortality that Socrates proposed? Come, take a seat, I will tell you the full story…

Contents

Part I. The Soul and Body

Part II. Arguments for the Soul’s Immortality

Part III. In Defence of Immortality

Part IV. The Death of Socrates, Further Analysis and Discussion

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan Pan
0:07.2	Scicast!
0:08.2	Part 2, Arguments for the Souls Immortality.
0:25.1	Hello, welcome back to our reading of the Fido.
0:27.8	Gentlemen, it's been a long time since our souls have been acquainted with one another.
0:31.7	How do you do? Do well.
0:33.8	Andrew?
0:35.1	I'm well too, Jack.
0:36.3	Well, if you're listening to this and you haven't listened to our last installment on the Fido,
0:39.9	you should probably go back and listen to that first.
0:42.5	If it's been a full week since you've listened to it, then last time we opened up the Fido,
0:47.5	we looked at the difference between one that satisfies their bodily desires over the wisdom of someone's soul,
0:55.9	and that essentially being a philosopher is getting ready for death. You're supposed to engage in pure reason, and you shouldn't be
0:59.9	following your bodily desires. And we got a little bit of an insight to, you know, why Socrates
1:04.4	isn't fearing death. In this section, we're looking at these three arguments. We'll give each, we'll give three little readings of the phylo, and then in each time we'll break down the individual arguments.
1:16.6	Anything we should be looking out for?
1:18.6	Anything we're looking forward to for this section, gentlemen?
1:21.6	I mean, I said, I think I mentioned it when we started the episode previously, which is that, in my opinion, not a lot of these arguments work, but then that's why it's kind of fun. Whoa, whoa, wow, Andy, we haven't even heard the arguments. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. See why normally we put the analysis at the end. Like, what we're about to say doesn't work. This isn't going to waste an hour of your time. Yeah, but that's the thing. I still don't think it's a waste of time. I mean, reading through the arguments was good fun. I enjoyed reading it. And it kind of, it just makes you think about why the arguments don't work. And that alone is good for like a new budding philosopher who's just starting off in their quest for knowledge.
2:01.9	For the pre-show that me and Greg did for the Philip Goff interview, he said it was coming
2:06.0	up to World Philosophy Day and he asked me what text I'd recommend for someone to get into philosophy.
2:10.4	And I said a Socratic dialogue.
2:11.9	I think this is a great example of you trying to decipher what the premises are from the text.
	...

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