Phaedo
Benjamin Jowett (1871)
Set in Socrates' prison cell on the day of his execution in 399 BCE, the Phaedo is narrated by the disciple Phaedo to recount Socrates' final hours and conversation. Facing death with composure, Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul through a sequence of proofs—from cyclical opposites, recollection, the theory of Forms, and the soul's affinity to the eternal—closing with a great myth of the afterlife. It is Plato's central dialogue on the soul, the Forms, and the philosophical life as a “practice for dying.”
Start readingYour notebookShow in graph