Dialogue On Phaedo, Session 1: Logic Of The Equal

In our first of three episodes on Plato’s Phaedo, on January 23, 2022 members of the Toronto Philosophy and Calgary Philosophy Meetup groups considered the properties of the soul that Socrates presents to his friends hours before his execution. Socrates says the body, in its constant state of change in the present, confuses the soul and so the soul’s path to pure knowledge is to separate itself as much as possible from the body in life. Does the soul interpret the varying inputs of the body’s senses with reference to opposites, in which Socrates says all physical objects come to be and because of which the soul is endowed with knowledge of The Equal? We discussed the Uncertainty Principle that limits knowledge of the physical universe, and The Equal as the balance that allows the soul to establish the difference between what is and what is not. One participant asked whether the number of souls is finite and if there is a point at which all souls connect, questions we might address in our next episode when we examine the properties of the invisible realm to which souls belong. Another posed the idea of the soul as “information”, which we began to explore in the context of the universal law of conservation of information and our recollection of departed souls. We ended our dialogue at 77(c), the point at which Socrates’ friends agree that the soul exists before birth but remain unconvinced that it does not disintegrate on death. Socrates defines death as separation of the soul from the body, and in our next episode we will explore his arguments that the soul remains intact, in itself, after death, and capable of recollection of equals and opposites in its thought processes.