A brief paraphrase of some of the arguments in Phaedo 

(NB: I have taken huge liberties with the text in these dialogues. They are very different from the actual texts themselves, but I have tried to outline some of the key arguments in the order in which they appear in the text and to maintain the sense of dialogue. My aim was to give you an introduction to the ideas discussed and to use those ideas as a catalyst for your own thoughts.) 

Cebes: It seems very reasonable that many don’t believe that the soul lives on after death. Many people just believe that the soul disappears with the body. What arguments are there that could persuade us otherwise?

Socrates: Well let me ask you this: could we have cold without hot?

Cebes: No.

Socrates: Or more without less.

Cebes: No.

Socrates: Or better without worse, or just without unjust, or quicker without slower, good without bad?

Cebes: No.

Socrates: And life without death?

Cebes: No. I suppose not.

Socrates: And isn’t it true that for something to become hotter, it must first be colder and vice versa?

Cebes: Yes, that’s true.

Socrates: And so one opposite must always come from the other opposite. So surely, life creates death, but death must also create life!

Cebes: Ah I see. It is like your favourite doctrine – the idea of recollection!

Simmias: I forget now, what is this idea of recollection?

Socrates: It is the idea that we know things, not by seeing or sensing them, but by recollecting or remembering them. For example, people will remember you when they see Cebes, no?

Simmias: Yes, because they will have seen us together.

Socrates: But have you ever seen equality? Is it even possible to see abstract things like this? Have you ever seen the number 3? Or a perfect circle? So how do you recognise it?

Simmias: I don’t know Socrates.

Socrates: You recognise these things because you must have seen them before, but you cannot have seen them in this world. So, the fact that we recollect such ideas or forms must be evidence that our souls were somewhere before we were born.

Simmias: But Socrates, it seems very far-fetched to suggest that we existed somewhere before we were born.

Socrates: Does it? I think it only seems that way because you are not seeing clearly what the soul of a person is. Can we see the soul?

Simmias: No.

Socrates: Does the soul take up space?

Simmias: No.

Socrates: And is the soul (at least when we are born) not perfect?

Simmias: Yes, I can agree to that too.

Socrates: And so, the soul is not like the body. It does not wither and die or rot or burn. The soul is like the number 3, or a perfect circle. It is an abstraction, an idea, a form like these. My soul will not cease to exist simply because my body does, just as the number 3 will not cease to exist if you stop writing or saying it.

Simmias: Ok, I can see your point a bit more clearly Socrates.

Socrates: Let me give you one final proof. We would say that a painting is made beautiful because it possesses beauty, no?

Simmias: Yes.

Socrates: And similarly, something is alive because it possesses life.

Simmias: Agreed.

Socrates: So, the abstract idea or form is the cause of the example. The form of beauty is the cause of the painting being beautiful; the form of life is the cause of my being alive. And what is my soul, if it is not this form of life? Again, I say to you: my soul can no more die than beauty can die, or the number 3 can die, or the perfect circle can die.