Socrates on Immortality

Plato’s Phaedo records Socrates last moments. Socrates explains that death is just the separation of the soul from the body. He further explains that a philosopher seeks understanding and refrains from bodily pleasures. The ultimate purification of the philosopher’s soul would be attained at the time when the soul separates from the body or in death. This is the reason why Socrates is not afraid of death or complains about it.

When Cebes asks Socrates why he believes that the soul is immortal and retains the wisdom gain in this life, Socrates explains this by recalling the principle of paired opposites. That is, “whatever comes to be comes out of its opposite or a cycle”.

Based on the paired opposites theory, it therefore follows that life ends in death and death must give way to life. Another theory Socrates in support of the immortality of the soul is the theory of Recollection. This theory is about deja vu or a feeling that we experience something before in the past life, recalled by our senses as ideas or forms. The forms are gained from experiences in the past life. They are not part of us because these ideas manifest on certain occasions. Forms serve as the basis of the doctrine of Reincarnation.

Therefore, the soul does not simply dissolve upon death. Like ideas or form it is indestructible and immortal. The ideas or Forms prove the immortality of the soul and the fact that the soul always implies life , as Socrates would have it.